Rhode Island Must Educate Kids About Dating Violence

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By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 10/8/2008 2:00:00 PM

There’s a new subject being taught this fall in Rhode Island middle and high school health classes: dating violence. The state legislature and the governor have approved the Lindsay Ann Burke Act in an effort to protect those most vulnerable to dating violence and now requires schools to educate kids on the subject.

Lindsay Ann Burke

Texas mandates unspecified awareness education on dating violence for students and parents, and other states, like Massachusetts, encourage it. But Rhode Island is the first state to require the topic be incorporated annually into the curriculum for students in seventh through 12th grade.

“Rhode Island has laws requiring a bullying policy in education and a harassment policy as well, so it’s only natural that we have a law requiring dating violence education to complete the violence package,” says Lindsay’s mother Ann Burke, who is a health teacher in a middle school. “I never knew about it, and my daughter never learned about it. If you’re not educated you won’t know it’s happening.”

“I firmly believe in the power of education,” she adds. “This needs to be taught like teen pregnancy, drug use, and heart disease because you’ll better recognize it and your friends will recognize it.”

The initiative, spearheaded by Rhode Island parents Ann and Chris Burke, whose 23-year-old daughter Lindsay Ann was brutally murdered in fall 2005 by her boyfriend, the act requires every school district in Rhode Island to develop a model dating violence policy and a policy to address incidents of dating violence involving students.

In June 2008 the National Association of Attorneys General passed a resolution supporting the Lindsay Ann Burke Act and teen dating violence education in all states.

The Burkes have set up the Lindsay Ann Burke Memorial Fund, which offers workshops for school staff and health teachers, to help prevent relationship violence .