(no subject)

[choneychurch]

This is a notification for all students regarding a change in rule enforcement.

This year, there has been a significant amount of antagonizing, harassing, and bullying through the journal system. Many prefects have intervened during these incidents or attempted to stop situations from escalating; I'm immensely grateful for that. But prefects can't be expected to constantly monitor the journals and these efforts haven't put a stop to the problem. Effective immediately: Maggie and I will be giving detention for bullying behavior on the journals. While other prefects may continue to be involved at their discretion, the lack of prefect involvement won't prevent anyone from being punished and we won't be giving out warnings. This is your warning. So please consider both the impact and the consequences of your actions.

For anyone that needs clarification, this means any comments made with the intention of hurting another student, comments made with blatant disregard for the feelings of another student, or comments which contain unwanted or aggressive language toward another student.

For example:

• Making threats, physical or otherwise.
• Calling someone derogatory names or slurs or using hate speech of any kind.
• Mocking or belittling the feelings, experiences, or opinions of other students.
• Making sexual comments or innuendoes that aren't wanted. This includes drawing lewd images in other students' journals.
• Spreading rumors or gossiping about other students.

These are just some examples, but if you are willfully antagonizing another student in an unwanted way and you don't stop when it becomes clear that they want you to stop, you will receive detention. We do understand that we all have different standards and different sensibilities, so if a situation genuinely seems to be unintentional or if those involved stop before the situation escalates, that will be taken into consideration. This consideration, however, will not be given to repeat offenders and people that have been talked to by prefects on multiple occasions about this type of behavior. I think most of us know when we're making someone uncomfortable or when we're hurting someone and that's something that we all have to take responsibility for.

Detentions will be scheduled in two-hour blocks on Saturdays and Sundays and will be overseen by me, Maggie, or a staff member. We've been given permission to assign multiple detentions per week to a student with multiple offenses or serious offenses and to keep students out of activities like dances, camping trips, Quidditch practice, and Quidditch matches if we deem it necessary. I hope that it never comes to that, but that's up to all of you. I'll be posting a full list of detentions every Friday so everyone knows where they are expected to be, when they are expected to be there, what they will be doing, and why they will be doing it. If your name appears on this list and you believe that we've judged a situation unfairly or incorrectly, tell me or Maggie and we can discuss what happened. If we can't come to a resolution that way, we can discuss the situation with the Heads of House. All of the Heads have been notified that this change is occurring and will make time for discussions as needed.

We'll be keeping up with the journals as well as we can, but anyone is welcome to contact us regarding specific incidents or to contact us regarding messages that have been privately warded. We'll have to see the content of warded messages to be able to act, because we don't want to let anyone use these rules against other people, but I promise that anything told to us or shown to us won't go any farther.

I realize that this will seem unfair or unreasonable to some of you, but please keep in mind that we're not asking for all of you to be friends or for all of you to get along. We're just asking you to treat each other with respect and empathy and to treat your peers as you would want to be treated or as you would want the people that you care about to be treated. And I hope you all understand that we're not doing this because we want to; we're doing this because nothing else has worked and we don't know how else to improve the situation. I suppose that's all I can say.

If anyone has questions, please let us know.

[Warded to Levi]

[...]

I know we already discussed this. And that it isn't a surprise. But I hope we're all ri

Hopefully this will go better than I'm anticipating, but

Can I see you later? Before you go to Astronomy tonight? [...] Nothing serious. It'd just be nice, that's all.

Comments

[choneychurch]

It does, Penny.

Cecil

[get_fucked]

You sure there, buddy? You sure some people, like Casey, won't get to slide because people like him?

Or, are you going to give detentions to your fellow Prefects, when they use their authority to bully someone into something?

Like, I don't know, when someone makes a joke and ten Prefects jump down their throats and it escalates into a fight because every Prefect just harassed someone and they're defending themselves, who gets punished, then?

Don't get me wrong, I hate bullies. I also hate people who want to hurt you, and I get that when my feelings get hurt I can overreact, but it's also unfair when I say something as a joke and I get Prefect Authority shoved down my throat and harassed on my own journal.

Penny|Cecil

[choneychurch]

Please don't talk down to me, Penny. If you have complaints or concerns, I want to hear them, but I expect you to show me the same respect that I'm going to show you.

I do understand where you're coming from, though, and all I can tell you is that Maggie and I will handle this as objectively and as fairly as we can. Everyone will be judged on their behavior, not their position or their popularity. If you have problems with any students going forward and you don't think that we've responded appropriately, please let me know and I'll be happy to discuss the situation with you.

Penny|Cecil

[get_fucked]

Sorry, it's just frustrating. Watching certain people get away with whatever they want. Or because it was all anonymous. Jesus, I can imagine if the anon posts still happen this might make that bullying increase a shitton.

[...] If I trust anyone to be fair, it's you. There are some people I have an issue with, but the past is past. If it happens again, I'll let you know.

Penny|Cecil

[choneychurch]

[...]

I know. It's all right. And I'm sorry about what happened with the flowers, Penny. Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in some people at this school and what they did to you and the others was cruel. Last time, we were able to manage the Anonymous Post fairly well, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to do that again and keep the focus away from gossip and insults and all the rest. The masquerade is what I'm worried abo

Thank you, Penny. And please do. If I can help, I want to.

Penny|Cecil

[get_fucked]

Thanks, Cecil. It sucked.

[...] I know you do. I'll let you know if anything happens. And I promise to be good on the Anon post. Not that I'm ever anything but sweet as pie, of course.