School Bullying Council

For instance, she said setting up Facebook privacy settings correctly should take at least two hours but most people chose to set it up in minutes without reading any policies.

“Setting up Facebook properly is not hard but it’s time consuming and too many kids can’t be bothered. Too many adults can’t be bothered, but it’s worth investing the time and experience so you can have a positive experience online,” she said.

Headmaster Stephen Kinsella said he had asked Ms McLean to speak at TIGS because of the increasing role technology was playing in his students’ lives.

“At TIGS we require all students to have a personal device to use in class, so if we’re demanding that we have a responsibility to teach them how to use technology safely,” he said.

“Some schools have the approach of blocking and filtering technology away from students, but our approach is about using the cyberworld safely.”

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/protecting-our-kids-from-online-nasties/2501527.aspx?src=rss

A former student of the prestigious Calhoun School sued his alma mater and a former classmate yesterday charging that he was the victim of serious bullying.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Eric Giray — now a sophomore at Brandeis University — accuses Daniel Dworakowski — now a sophomore at Cornell — of taunting him for years before shoving him into the school’s bleachers on Oct. 15, 2004.

Giray, who attended Calhoun for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, broke his nose and needed 18 stitches to close the gashes, according to his attorney Ric Cherwin.

The incident came two weeks after Giray’s mother, Dr. Ayse Giray, a pediatrician, complained in two emails to school administrators that Dworakowski, a champion athlete, had repeatedly called her smaller son “gay” and told him he had “elephant ears.”

“I really don’t want him to be bullied again,” the mother wrote in a September 2004 email to Calhoun administrators.

Dworakowski’s mother, Elzbieta, told the Daily News yesterday that she was shocked that Giray had filed a lawsuit so many years after the event.

“Oh, please. That was not a bullying. That was just an accident. A teacher told us it was an accident and nothing else,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion.

Giray disagreed.

“On his life, Eric said Daniel with malice and intent in his eyes pushed Eric extremely hard and quickly so that Eric had no time to react and smashed him into the bleachers,” Cherwin said. “Eric said there is absolutely no way it could have been an accident, especially given the taunting over the months preceding the incident.”

In the lawsuit, Giray accused Calhoun of failing to respond to his mother’s bullying complaints, failing to protect him and not having an anti-bullying policy. He is seeking $1.5 million in damages.

bross@nydailynews.com