School Bullying Council

By
KSEE News

January 20, 2012

Updated Jan 20, 2012 at 10:24 PM PST

The US Supreme Court is taking a pass on a set of cyber bullying cases; it’s a big disappointment for those trying to fight off the online attacks.

The Court decided not to take up one case out of West Virginia; it involved a web page that alleged another student had a sexually transmitted disease. The court decided to let the suspension of the student who created it—stand.

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Another case came out of Pennsylvania; two students wrote parodies about their principals on MySpace. The court stayed out of the rulings that said schools couldn’t discipline the two students.

As the courts step away, the problem of cyber bullying is continuing to plague students all across the nation.

It’s a social media virus that’s infecting our youth. “We asked kids how many people have been bullied online through text and the majority raised their hands,” says Hanford Chief Investigator Karl Anderson. “Then we asked how many told and adult—there were very few.”

It’s a problem the Supreme Court is leaving to the schools and a decision that is disappointing the National School Board Association who says, “We’ve missed the opportunity to really clarify for school districts what their responsibility and authority is,” said Francisco Negron, general counsel of the National School Boards Association. “This is one of those cases where the law is simply lagging behind the times.”

The law might be lagging but cyber bullying is growing. “Every case is different from the minute ‘I don’t like you, you’re ugly’ to trying to destroy someone’s reputation,” says Anderson. He gives cyber bullying classes at Pioneer Middle School. It’s just one of thousands of schools trying to prevent the painful scars words can leave behind. “Traditional bullying happened on a playground, someone pushed someone down; it stayed at school two or three people saw it,” says Anderson. Now, it’s become a phenomenon—texts, posts—it’s a virus that’s spreading and schools can only do so much. “We can’t look at students cell phones and we can’t get on their Facebook page or twitter page,” says Pioneer’s Principal Greg Henry.

If bullying happens on kid’s route to campus, the school could step in; if it happens outside of school, parents or students have to report it. The situation has to disrupt the education process. “It’s also a grey area,” says Henry.

It’s a fine line the Supreme Court—at this point—won’t define. “I do think the Supreme Court might have taken the easy way out but it’s a grey area and it’s going to grow from here,” says Henry.

Many parents may monitor their children’s social media activity but do you have the right page? During cyber bullying presentations investigators say numerous kids admit to having a fake profile for their parents and a real one for themselves.

Christina Lusby Reporting.

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http://www.ksee24.com/news/local/Cyber-Bullying---CLU-137794598.html

Story Published:
May 10, 2011 at 10:54 AM PDT

Story Updated:
May 10, 2011 at 5:29 PM PDT

SEATTLE — A 12-year-old girl who prosecutors say sought revenge by bullying a former friend with her own Facebook account pleaded not guilty on Monday.

The girl has been charged in juvenile court with first-degree computer trespass and cyberstalking.

The girl, along with an 11-year-old girl also charged in the case, were classmates at Issaquah Middle School with the 12-year-old victim.

The three were friends but had a falling out that prosecutors say spilled onto Facebook.

The two girls who have been charged allegedly logged into the victim’s Facebook account and edited pictures to depict a knife pointing at her head, drew devils horns and added word bubbles reading “I’m a slut.”

Using the victim’s account, the girls posted comments on other profiles saying “Have sex with me,” and soliciting men for oral sex.

“I was hurt and sad and very angry,” Leslie Cote said in an interview last month.

KOMO News normally does not identify crime victims, but Leslie and her family chose to discuss the incident that she says left her crying and unable to sleep for weeks.

“Some people looked at me differently, and then judged me differently now because of what happened,” she said.

Leslie said the former friends had access to her Facebook account because she had accidentally saved the password in the web browser on one of their computers.

When police confronted the two girls, both allegedly admitted they accessed Leslie’s Facebook account without permission because they were mad at her.

“This case reveals the dark side of social media sites used by young people,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in a news release. “Many kids think that on a social media site that their actions will be anonymous and that they are free to use it as weapon to bully, harass, and intimidate another person.”

The 11-year-old girl who allegedly took part in the scheme has not been arraigned. A hearing has been scheduled for later this month for a judge to determine whether the girl understands that her actions were wrong.

According to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, state law presumes that children age 8 to 11 are not capable of committing crimes.

The judge also ordered the 12-year-old not to have contact with the victim, either in person or online.

If convicted as charged, the girls could serve up to 30 days in juvenile detention.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/121577664.html

CLEVELAND — An estate case involving a bullied teen who killed himself is being sent back to federal court by the Ohio Supreme Court.

The court decided it didn’t have jurisdiction over the case of 17-year-old Eric Mohat. At issue in the oral arguments heard Feb. 16 was whether claims made by Mohat’s estate could proceed in federal court.

The teen’s parents filed a lawsuit in 2009 claiming their son shot himself in 2007 after months of bullying in school. The Mohats claim teachers and other employees in the Cleveland suburb of Mentor did nothing to stop the bullying.

School attorneys argue the parents had no right to sue on behalf of their son’s estate because the estate didn’t exist in probate court at the time of the suit.

View the discussion thread.

Jack Wilshere‘s online outburst on Twitter directed towards Barry Ferguson after Arsenal‘s Carling Cup final defeat has been labelled as “cyber-bullying” by the Birmingham City manager, Alex McLeish.

Wilshere, the 19-year-old midfielder, accused Ferguson of “slapping” the Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny as Birmingham players celebrated Obafemi Martins’s 89th-minute match-winning goal at Wembley on Sunday, which arrived as a result of a catastrophic mix-up between Koscielny and the goalkeeperWojciech Szczesny.

He tweeted: “Well done to the BCFC player who slapped Koscielny on the head when they scored, very big of you!”

The comments have disappointed McLeish. “It’s not my world, Twitter and all that stuff,” said the manager. “Cyber-bullying is not for me. We’ll draw a line under it and move forward.”

Doubt may have been cast on Ferguson’s behaviour but no one can argue with the midfielder’s bravery after it emerged that he played with a broken rib for an hour at Wembley, leaving him doubtful for Saturday’s derby against West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League.

“It shows his pain threshold,” said McLeish. “It’s frightening but it shows the character of the guy to do that.”

Ferguson may have a pain-killing injection should he not be fit. McLeish said: “Ferguson has had this before in our time at Rangers and he took an injection into the ribs. It was administered with a giant needle – not something I would fancy – which alleviates the pain. If he doesn’t make it for the weekend, that could be administered in the next week or two.”

Ferguson would also appear to have a softer side, though, after his team-mate Liam Ridgewell revealed that the former Rangers player was reduced to tears after the 2-1 victory over Arsenal. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass him but I’m sure Fergie might have shed a tear or two,” the defender said.

McLeish is adamant that Lee Bowyer could have a future at St Andrew’s beyond the summer despite the midfielder’s claim that he had been told he will not be offered a new deal.

“The club never said that,” McLeish said. “We spoke with Lee last summer and the talks took longer than we thought. We couldn’t agree so it was a case of speaking again at the end of the season. No doors are closed on anybody.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/mar/03/alex-mcleish-jack-wilshere-cyber-bullying

CUMBERLAND COUNTY (WTVD) — Investigators in Cumberland County are looking into a couple of cases they’re calling cyber-bullying at two local high schools. Authorities say bullies are targeting students on Facebook. Vernon Aldridge is the principal at Gray’s Creek High School. Students at his school and Jack Britt High School have been accused of setting up Facebook pages that may have broken a state law against cyber-bullying.

The 2009 state law makes it illegal to intimidate or torment a minor online, including building a fake profile or website.

“Bullying does not have to be anything physical,” Sheriff’s Spokesperson Debbie Tanna said. “It can be something mental, such as writing negative comments about a person on the internet, maybe telling someone’s secret that they shouldn’t be telling.”

Aldridge, who has been an educator for 20 years, says while the incidents involving his students started off-campus, they can quickly become major problems at school.

“I was actually contacted by a former student by e-mail making me aware of these pages,” he said. “So that’s how I first got my knowledge of it. As soon as I found out about it what I tried to do is tried to get the pages shut down.”

The Facebook pages have been shut down and the students who were targeted don’t want to press charges, it’s not stopping the investigation.

It is the sheriff office’s first investigation of since the General Assembly passed the law against cyber-bullying.

Officials say it is a good opportunity for parents to have a long talk with their children about cyber-bullying and how it can get you in trouble with the law.

“It was a learning experience for our kids, because we had to sit down and educate our kids about the laws that are in place now,” Aldridge said. “The biggest thing is to monitor their kids while they’re online.”

In Illinios, two Emerson Middle School students have been charged by Park Ridge Police with harassment in an alleged case of cyber-bullying against a female classmate.

The 13- and 14-year-old girls, both of Park Ridge, were charged Dec. 23 under a local ordinance and are scheduled to appear before the Park Ridge Peer Jury, police said.

According to police the girls are accused of setting up a page on the social-networking site, Facebook, that included offensive and derogatory statements about a 13-year-old girl. Requests to “friend” the page were then sent out to more than 80 classmates, said Park Ridge Police Cmdr. Lou Jogmen.

The father of the 13-year-old victim contacted police after learning about the site, Jogmen said. Two Park Ridge detectives interviewed about 10 Emerson Middle School students before identifying the two girls who were allegedly responsible for the Facebook page.

Jogmen said detectives spent more than 15 hours on the case, and he called it a “pretty substantial investigation.”

For the past several years, Emerson, in cooperation with the Niles Police Department, has held seminars for parents on the topic of cyber-bulling and how to protect their children online.