When The School Calls It Bullying
RCW 28A.600.477 — a district policy built on the state model, and one person named as the contact
Each Washington school district adopts a policy and procedure prohibiting harassment, intimidation and bullying of any student, incorporating at a minimum the state model policy and procedure, and shares it with parents, students, volunteers and employees.
One named contact. Each district designates one person as the primary contact for the policy, who ensures it is implemented, receives copies of all formal and informal complaints relating to harassment, intimidation or bullying, and serves as the contact with the office of the education ombuds and the state superintendent.
Who helps write it. Districts are encouraged to adopt and update the policy through a process that includes parents, employees, volunteers, students, administrators and community representatives.
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 Washington attorney.
Sources for this section (1)
- RCW 28A.600.477 — Prohibition of harassment, intimidation, and bullying
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Washington attorney.