The Park City School District is nearing the end of its review of harassment incidents

In March, the district signed a joint resolution with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to address concerns about compliance with harassment and discrimination regulations. As part of the resolution, the district must review reported harassment incidents from the 2022-2023 school year.

Superintendent Jill Gildea said the district has worked on incidents involving 29 people, although there are multiple cases for some students. To complete the review, the district examines how an incident was handled at the time it was reported, including reviewing records and verifying that the child’s family was interviewed. Gildea said the district then examines how the student was supported and whether those efforts were sufficient.

The district expects to complete the review by May 30.

All new harassment reports will now be submitted through the District’s newly completed standardized reporting system. Gildea said the district expects an increase in harassment reports with the new system.

“When we see something, we want people to say something, and we expect that coverage will actually increase so we know what areas to focus on in additional education for students and our community.”

Gildea said the district is also focused on learning how to better communicate its anti-harassment policies and ways to prevent it.

The district is currently increasing consequences for repeat offenders, which may vary depending on the student’s age.

Possible punishments for students include phone calls to parents, referral to a small support group, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension and online learning.

Gildea said dealing with harassment in local schools was already a problem before the OCR resolution was signed.

“From the moment and even before, even before any of these issues were submitted to OCR when we were working on them, there was an acknowledgment of, ‘Hey, this is a problem.'”

District schools have also made efforts to prevent harassment. Students at Treasure Mountain Junior High learn more about how to prevent harassment in a counseling class each week, and Gildea said Ecker Hill Middle School has introduced lessons on harassment this year as well. Gildea also said the leadership course at Park City High School also helped.

“We saw kids wanting to solve this problem, we saw leaders talking about current issues,” she said. “Social justice courses talk about this and provide their ideas about what can help in this scenario, including educating adults.”

In addition, a wellness and problem-solving program has been developed for elementary school students, she said.

The district expects to be in full compliance with the conditions of the OCR order by summer 2026.