By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY

Staff Writer
County school leaders, in a called board meeting Friday, adopted a state mandated policy on harassment and bullying, meeting the Dec. 31 deadline for the action.
The board voted 8-1 to adopt the policy, which expands the definition of bullying or harassing behavior to include, but is not limited to, “acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.”
But the new policy retains a former definition of discrimination that was the subject of much discussion at the school board meeting earlier this week.
The policy defines discrimination as “any act that unreasonably and unfavorably differentiates treatment of others based solely on their membership in a socially distinct group or category, such as race, ethnicity, sex, religion, age, or disability.”
The new policy eliminates the phrase “discrimination may be intentional or unintentional.”
Board Vice Chairman F. Mac Hodges cast the sole dissenting vote.
In an interview after the meeting, Hodges said he preferred an expanded definition of discrimination that included the same differentiating characteristics as in the section pertaining to bullying and harassment.
A new definition of bullying or harassment was enacted earlier this year by the state legislature as part of the School Violence Prevention Act which requires each local school system to adopt specific language as part of its policy prohibiting bullying or harassing behavior. The law set a Dec. 31 deadline for schools to enact the changes and requires school systems to train by March 1, 2010 their employees and volunteers who have “significant contact with students” in the policy.
On Monday, the board unanimously voted to table action on the new policy and reconsider the changes at its January meeting, action that would have missed the state mandated deadline had the board not reconvened before the end of the year.
In other business, the board approved a request from Washington High School to renovate a classroom so the school can implement a new program that teaches vocational and life skills to exceptional children and adopted Monday, May 31, 2010 as a make-up date for the Beaufort County Early College High School.
All board members attended the meeting.