School Bullying Council

Every day that 11-year-old Caine Smith goes to school (video below), he gets pushed around, punched, and called a fag just because he’s a little shy, has long hair, and is being raised by two moms.

“[The bullies] just think that I’m really different and think that they can pick on me,” Smith says. “They want me to change who I am. But I can’t change who I am.”

Smith has never really had friends willing to stick up for him. Most of his pals get bullied and called names too — some of them have even begun bullying him just to avoid getting picked on themselves.

But after school, Smith has a secret way of calming down and clearing his mind — playing games on his Nintendo Wii.

“Gaming actually really helps me a lot to calm down,” Smith says. “It’s like going into a different universe.”

When he plays video games, Smith imagines a world where he can fly and do Harry Potter-style magic; a world where he can zip the lips of all the kids who call him names and finally be himself.

With the support of his two moms, Smith spoke out against bullying to local school officials. But he’s not alone. Homophobic bullying pervades public schools. Half of kids with lesbian parents get harassed at school. Over time, the bullying hurts students’ grades, their health and can even lead to suicide.

While it’s not uncommon to find homophobic bullying in online gaming forums too, studies have proved that video games actually help kids alleviate stress.

And considering that a growing number of gamers have begun self-identifying as LGBT, it’s safe to say that kids who experience anti-LGBT bullying are among those using games as a way to cope.

“I have been bullied quite a bit up until I reached the end of high school,” says Matt Conn, cofounder of Gaymer X, an LBGT gaming conference happening this August in San Francisco. “I wished I could have just been myself and honest about being a queer geek. … Games were my only escape for me. They allowed me to live in another world … having a team with me as we stormed Booster’s Castle in Super Mario RPG or defeating the evil Porky in Earthbound … really was magical.”

Conn and cofounder Kayce Brown (pictured) started Gaymer X as a month-long Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 for the “first gaming and tech convention with a focus on LGBT geek culture.” The campaign ended up raising $91,388 — evidence that LGBT gamers wanted a place to connect and discuss their issues, a bullying-free place to play and games and gaming communities that reflect themselves.

Though Brown grew up in a conservative part of Arizona, she didn’t endure as much bullying as Smith and Conn. Nevertheless, she says she’s seen too many people struggling, living in fear and attempting suicide because of anti-LGBT phobia.

Women like Brown often get targeted with crude come-ons, sexist putdowns, and even death threats as part of their online gaming experience. When writer Anita Sarkeesian launched a video campaign to address misogyny in gaming, her YouTube channel got filled with sexist comments and her Wikipedia page got defaced with pornography and statements about her liking “gay fisting” and “homosexual penetration.”

“I think GaymerX addresses the issue simply by our original mission that regardless of being queer, straight, bi, trans, whatever … you have a safe space to escape and be yourself with us,” Brown says. “We aren’t out to set ourselves apart. Our tagline from the beginning has been ‘Everyone Games,’ and we truly mean that and want anyone and everyone to feel welcome and safe being exactly who they are.”

Conn concurs: “I’m hoping that as young people see what we’re doing with GaymerX, they can see that there is an entire world out there for them — that they are not alone, that there are tens of thousands of openly queer geeks, and that being a queer geek is not ‘weird’ or abnormal.

“It may be a smaller group than your straight friends, but [it's] entitled to every right that they are. Feeling accepted, feeling wanted, feeling attractive, and feeling like part of a community.”

Watch a documentary short about Caine Smith fighting homophobic bullying below:

Like many middle school students, the seventh-graders in Dana Richards’ language arts classes have either witnessed or been victims of bullying.

The Anza Trail School students are aware of the various forms of harassment, from verbal and physical to cyberbullying, but a class project allowed them to delve deeper into the topic and educate their classmates.

The students created videos, websites, PowerPoint slide shows and brochures to reveal tips on how to deal with bullies, present statistics on those affected by bullying and conduct interviews with people who have faced harassment.

There was even an anti-bullying rap recited by a few students at the end of the presentations.

The interviews included a girl who was temporarily taken out of school because of bullying and a teacher in his 60s who still felt the impact of mistreatment he encountered in high school.

In other videos, the middle schoolers acted out scenarios, depicting how students should react when they encounter a bully.

“It’s important to us,” said seventh-grader Skylar Simmons, 13. “We really want to get the message out there and end it.”

Richards is fully aware of the bullying that can occur in middle school, which is why she assigned the project to her students, she said.

The students prepared for the project by reading “Bystander,” a novel about bullying, as well as other fictional stories before writing their own stories.

They also published an article to the Sahuarita school’s website, read blogs on bullying and researched other anti-bullying projects. The research and digital media components adhered to the state’s new Common Core standards, which were created to better prepare students for college and careers.

“It’s great to see the kids take responsibility and have them be the teachers,” Richards said.

While working on the project, the students learned their own personal lessons and gained new perspectives on bullying.

The students quoted statistics on the number of suicides connected to bullying, as well as how many people drop out of school because they’re harassed.

“I learned that bullying is a lot bigger than I thought it was. People’s voices need to be heard,” said Summer Lamb, 12.

Simmons shared the same sentiment.

“When you’re bullied, it feels like the end of the world,” she said. “It made me realize I’m not alone with it.”

“I learned that bullying is a lot bigger than I thought it was. People’s voices need to be heard.”

Summer Lamb, Anza Trail School student

Contact reporter Jamar Younger at jyounger@azstarnet.com or 573-4242. On Twitter: @JamarYounger

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/students-serve-as-teachers-in-anti-bullying-lessons/article_24491b93-6a1a-52ea-ac2e-d0acccb9c81c.html

Here we go again!

Just hours after being arrested for reckless endangerment which occurred after the starlet allegedly chucked a bong out her window, Amanda Bynes is pleading her case to the court of public opinion!

Surprising absolutely no one, she sent out an unfocused tweet just minutes ago saying she never drinks or abuses drugs and that she definitely doesn’t own a bong!!

She swore:

Read more »

[Image via Twitter.]

http://perezhilton.com/2013-05-24-lisa-vanderpump-denies-kyle-richards-husband-cheating-rumors-happy-adrienne-maloof-fired

A few of the seventh-graders left in tears.

Other students hugged them, as teachers and guidance counselors took them into the halls for a private talk.

They had just emerged from a class assembly at Duval Charter School at Baymeadows. One of the topics was bullying and some of what they heard hit home.

“It was pretty good,” said one girl, even as she broke down.

“Inspiring,” said her friend and classmate.

Hitting home was the goal of the three Wednesday assemblies led by Project SOS, a Northeast Florida nonprofit that strengthens families by empowering parents and educating youth to make healthy life choices.

Only the students can change the school culture to not tolerate bullying, said Nikki DeMoya, a youth development specialist for the nonprofit.

“Words are the most powerful thing you own. Your words can make someone’s day or hurt them for the rest of their lives,” she told the students. “You make the decision … You’re going to make a school where everybody feels safe.”

School officials requested the assemblies, separate sessions for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. But DeMoya told the students that bullying occurs everywhere, at their school, in other Duval County schools and across the country and the world.

At the seventh-grade session, she asked students to raise their hands if they had been bullied. Most did. She asked them to raise their hands if a sibling or someone else they knew had been bullied. Most did. Then she asked them to raise their hands if they had bullied others themselves. A few hands went up.

Anyone who repeatedly makes hurtful comments or repeatedly engages in physical or online abuse is a bully, DeMoya said. Regardless of where and by whom, bullying is wrong. And victims and witnesses should take action.

“Tell them to stop. Tell an adult,” she said.

Earlier in the session, Katrina Rogers, another Project SOS youth development specialist, talked about how to know who your real friends are.

She asked students if they had goals and dreams. Most raised their hands. Friends are people who support your goals and dreams, she said, and tell you the truth, not necessarily what you want to hear.

Think of yourself as a tree, she said. Real friends are your roots. People who repeatedly try to tear down such goals and dreams are not, she said.

“You can’t live without roots,” Rogers said.

Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109

PROJECT SOS

In addition to helping students cope with bullying and maintain friendships, Project SOS helps them better communicate with parents, establish boundaries and avoid drugs, alcohol, sex, violence and suicide. For more information, call (904) 296-9950, email info@projectsos.com or go to projectsos.com.

A few of the seventh-graders left in tears.

Other students hugged them, as teachers and guidance counselors took them into the halls for a private talk.

They had just emerged from a class assembly at Duval Charter School at Baymeadows. One of the topics was bullying and some of what they heard hit home.

“It was pretty good,” said one girl, even as she broke down.

“Inspiring,” said her friend and classmate.

Hitting home was the goal of the three Wednesday assemblies led by Project SOS, a Northeast Florida nonprofit that strengthens families by empowering parents and educating youth to make healthy life choices.

Only the students can change the school culture to not tolerate bullying, said Nikki DeMoya, a youth development specialist for the nonprofit.

“Words are the most powerful thing you own. Your words can make someone’s day or hurt them for the rest of their lives,” she told the students. “You make the decision … You’re going to make a school where everybody feels safe.”

School officials requested the assemblies, separate sessions for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. But DeMoya told the students that bullying occurs everywhere, at their school, in other Duval County schools and across the country and the world.

At the seventh-grade session, she asked students to raise their hands if they had been bullied. Most did. She asked them to raise their hands if a sibling or someone else they knew had been bullied. Most did. Then she asked them to raise their hands if they had bullied others themselves. A few hands went up.

Anyone who repeatedly makes hurtful comments or repeatedly engages in physical or online abuse is a bully, DeMoya said. Regardless of where and by whom, bullying is wrong. And victims and witnesses should take action.

“Tell them to stop. Tell an adult,” she said.

Earlier in the session, Katrina Rogers, another Project SOS youth development specialist, talked about how to know who your real friends are.

She asked students if they had goals and dreams. Most raised their hands. Friends are people who support your goals and dreams, she said, and tell you the truth, not necessarily what you want to hear.

Think of yourself as a tree, she said. Real friends are your roots. People who repeatedly try to tear down such goals and dreams are not, she said.

“You can’t live without roots,” Rogers said.

Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109

PROJECT SOS

In addition to helping students cope with bullying and maintain friendships, Project SOS helps them better communicate with parents, establish boundaries and avoid drugs, alcohol, sex, violence and suicide. For more information, call (904) 296-9950, email info@projectsos.com or go to projectsos.com.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Students, researchers, educators and government leaders are gathering at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford to discuss ways of addressing cyberbullying and bullying in schools.

The
Connecticut Commission on Children scheduled a forum for Thursday.

Commission Director Elaine Zimmerman said she hopes the participants can obtain information about the steps they can take to create a positive school climate and how they can comply with Connecticut’s 2011 anti-bullying law.

That law requires all school employees, teaching candidates and beginning teachers to receive annual training on how to prevent and respond to student bullying. School employees must report acts of student bullying to school officials and schools must investigate them promptly.

Part of Thursday’s forum includes a panel discussion of youth, parents and educators who’ve dealt with different kinds of bullying.

Copyright AP Modified, Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Often bullying stems from a lack of understanding of others. Whether it’s sexuality, race or even economic status, some find it easier to pick on others’ differences.

Students at Wellstone International High School say bullying is almost a daily occurrence there. Housed in the same building as Roosevelt High, some students say the mixing of the two schools can sometimes be like combining oil and water.

“One of the things that I’ve seen was a student from Wellstone being bullied by a Roosevelt kid, and mostly it’s because of they don’t speak the language,” Wellstone Student Council Member Ibrhim Abdi said.

Abdi and other council members say in school bullying interferes with what they’re really there to do: learn.

“There are some folks that are being bullied and that might cause them to quit school,” Abdi said.

Recently, the Wellstone Student Council surveyed the student body about bullying. Their goal was to make everyone aware of what bullying is, find out how big a problem it is and encourage support rather than ridicule for those who are different.

Student council member Diego Pini hopes raising awareness will allow his peer “to feel free to explain themselves. To feel free to be who they want to be.”

Wellstone students are earning their way to We Day Minnesota because of their anti-bullying service project.

There’s still time for your school to sign up and earn its way to We Day. You have until May 31. The only way to get to we day is to earn it by doing one local and one global service project.

For more information on signing up, go to our We Day page.

Parents must stay vigilant when it comes especially to their children’s online activities, experts say.

By Jeremiah Dobruck

May 21, 2013 | 8:06 p.m.

Most parents of sixth-grade students don’t quite grasp the technological tools that can be used to harass kids these days, Newport Beach crime prevention specialist Erica Sperling said.

But as she goes about her work, visiting middle schools to talk about bullying, she sees that the tech-savvy kids certainly do, she said.

“It’s not just sending an email any more,” she said. “Most kids aren’t even on email. It’s all Snapchat, Instagram.”

• Related

• 
  

  jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com

‘;

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
jQuery(‘#story-body-text’).append(muskalsig);
});

If they want to fight bullying on a cyber front, parents and schools need to understand those two photo-sharing social networks and the host of new communication methods, she said.

“It’s really easy to say something mean you wouldn’t [say] in person,” she said.

At a small seminar at Harbor View Elementary School on Tuesday, three Newport Beach police officials outlined their experiences with bullying in the local school system and what parents can do to fight the problem.

That task started with defining “bullying.”

“It’s such a catchphrase these days,” school resource officer Vlad Anderson said.

But he explained that true bullying is a deliberately hurtful act, usually repeated, and it involves some imbalance of power between the aggressor and victim.

When those factors align, the situation can be extremely harmful and involve multiple students.

“There is a way things evolve when there is a bullying incident,” Anderson said.

He showed a diagram of an aggressor, a victim and other students who either tacitly or actively condone the bullying by participating, taking pictures or just watching.

“It’s almost like a mob mentality,” he said.

Anderson and Sperling repeatedly returned to themes of observation and engagement to confront bullying: finding out information from kids and talking through the issue with students, teachers and other parents.

“And there is no magic,” Sperling said. “That’s the hardest part”

Watching for warning signs like withdrawal and then broaching the topic of bullying is key, she said.

That vigilance must extend to the online world, said Dave Syvock, a special victims unit detective who works on sexual cases that involve juveniles.

Anything a child posts online can end up in the hands of a bully or a predator, he said.

“For some reason now, the bathroom has become the 20th-century photo booth,” Syvock said.

He advised parents that if they took nothing else from the seminar, they should remember one piece of advice:

“If you ever see your child going to the bathroom with any kind of device with access to the Internet, please stop them and take it away from them,” he said.

Principal Todd Schmidt said he asked the Newport Beach Police Department to put on the seminar after at least 20 parents came to him asking how to deal with bullying incidents at Harbor View or in anticipation of their children moving up to middle school.

But fewer than 10 parents attended Tuesday’s event.

“I’m just surprised by this,” Schmidt said, expressing his disappointment at the turnout.

http://www.dailypilot.com/news/tn-dpt-me-0522-bullying-seminar-20130521,0,5999400.story

File photo/The Star-Ledger 

NEWARK — When a Ridgewood teenager called a middle school classmate “horse” and other names, he should have known they would emotionally harm her, a state Administrative Law Judge ruled today in upholding the Bergen County school district’s decision that the boy committed bullying.

Judge Jeffrey Gerson today rejected an appeal brought by the boy and his father, who challenged the finding of bullying and sought to have any mention of the the incident removed from the teen’s school record.

Gerson found the boy called the girl “horse,” “a horse,” “fat” and/or “fat a**,” on more than one occasion in seventh and eighth grade, and that the comments were motivated by her appearance.

“A reasonable person should know that repeatedly calling a teenage girl ‘fat’ or ‘fat a**’ would have the effect of emotionally harming her,” the judge wrote. He said the boy also made a comment after the girl dyed her hair that “had the effect of insulting and demeaning” her.

“The record is devoid of any evidence or suggestion that (the boy) was a persistent troublemaker,” Gerson wrote. “Nevertheless, his comments were hurtful and unkind.”

The case is one of at least 16 under the state’s new Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights that have been appealed to the Commissioner of Education since the law took effect nearly two years ago. The case will now go to the commissioner, who has 45 days to uphold, reject or modify it.

In the Ridgewood case, a court hearing was held last month during which the boy and three school officails testified.

The boy, who is not being identified because of his age, admitted calling the girl “horse,” but denied calling her other names that were alleged.

He testified that he had once been friends with the girl but that they stopped hanging out about five months before the bullying investigation began after he stopped dating one of her friends.

He admitted calling her “horse,” but said it was a nickname which he did not make up and that other students used it as well. He also suggested students who said he called the girl “fat” and “fat a**” were lying.

The judge called his testimony “contrived and not convincing.”

The boy’s father also introduced as evidence Facebook and Twitter posts in an attempt to show the girl used the nickname “horse,” or had “an affinity for horses,” but the judge said those posts proved nothing.

Three officials from the Benjamin Franklin Middle School also testified, including anti-bullying specialist Lara Sheer and Principal Anthony Orsini, who originally determined that the boy and another boy committed bullying in the case.

CONNECT

WITH US

On mobile or desktop:

• Like The Star-Ledger on Facebook

• Follow @starledger on Twitter

And check out our redesigned mobile site by visiting NJ.com from any mobile browser.

Gerson said he found the officials’ testimony “credible and compelling.”

The judge also upheld the district’s punishment — two after-school detentions — and found the school did not act abitrarily or unreasonably.

In response to the boy’s request the incident be removed from his record, the judge said such a review could only take place if it was found the school board acted arbitrarily, capriciously or unreasonably.

The boy’s father, reached via email, said he had no comment on the ruling.

“At this point the ruling stands on its merits and we are waiting for the commissioners ruling,” Ridgewood Superintendent Daniel Fishbein said today.

RELATED COVERAGE
•Anti-bullying law sparks new fights as accused students appeal in court