When The School Calls It Bullying
G.S. 115C-407.15 — no student or school employee subjected to it, and a duty on staff to report
North Carolina states the prohibition outright: no student or school employee is to be subjected to bullying or harassing behavior by school employees or students, and no person may retaliate against a victim, witness, or person with reliable information about it.
The definition. Bullying or harassing behavior is a pattern of gestures, communications, physical acts or threats on school property, at a school function or on a school bus that places a student or employee in actual and reasonable fear of harm to person or property, or creates a hostile environment by substantially interfering with a student's educational performance, opportunities or benefits. It includes acts reasonably perceived as motivated by an actual or perceived differentiating characteristic or by association with someone who has one.
- A school employee who witnessed it or has reliable information reports it to the appropriate school official.
- Each local school unit's policy includes a reporting procedure that allows anonymous reports, though formal discipline cannot rest on an anonymous report alone.
- It names the principal or a designee as the person responsible for a prompt investigation.
- At the start of each school year the principal provides the policy to staff, students and parents.
Discipline itself, suspension and expulsion procedure, federal civil rights law on harassment based on a protected characteristic, and criminal charges for conduct that is also a crime are outside this page. Whether a district followed its own policy in a particular case, and what can be done if it did not, are questions for a licensed North Carolina attorney.
Sources for this section (2)
- G.S. 115C-407.15 — Bullying and harassing behavior
- G.S. 115C-407.16 — Policy against bullying or harassing behavior
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed North Carolina attorney.