Colorado Legacy Foundation Expands Bullying Prevention Initiative

(Denver, CO) Today the Colorado Legacy Foundation (CLF) announced that it has extended the reach of its bullying prevention initiative by providing a grant to Cortez Middle School. CLF is able to provide this grant as a result of generous support from Vectra Bank.

“The mission of the Colorado Legacy Foundation is to ensure an effective leader in every school, an effective teacher in every classroom, and students that come to school healthy and ready to learn,” said Dr. Helayne Jones, President and CEO of the Colorado Legacy Foundation. “It is unhealthy for young people to feel unsafe and studies have shown that close to one in five students in Colorado report being bullied. This grant keeps faith with our mission by supporting efforts to provide safe spaces for all children to thrive.”

CLF will partner with Cortez to implement a comprehensive bullying prevention effort with special attention to ensuring that students most likely to be bullied are able to learn and achieve in safe environments. The CLF Bullying Prevention Initiative supports training for approximately 9,000 teachers and staff and impacts approximately 60,000 students across Colorado.

“We are pleased to collaborate with the Colorado Legacy Foundation to promote this important work,” commented Vectra Bank’s Bruce Weber, Market President, Cortez, Colorado. “Vectra Bank is dedicated to making a difference in the communities we serve. This partnership with the Colorado Legacy Foundation allows us to further that mission.”

“We are grateful to the Colorado Legacy Foundation for the opportunity to participate in this important initiative,” said Cortez Middle School Principal, Jamie Haukeness. “Ensuring our students’ safety and wellbeing is a priority in our district. These funds will help us maintain an effective bullying prevention policy and make certain that all of our students can thrive.”

This investment is part of a broader effort to support districts across the state in implementing Colorado’s recent bullying prevention law (HB 1254), which was passed in 2011 to strengthen bullying prevention efforts across the state. The new law requires districts to update their bullying prevention policies to include cyberbullying and to prohibit bullying based on disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, ancestry, or need for special education services. The tools developed and lessons learned from the initiative will be shared statewide.