School Bullying Council

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 26, 2012 — MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — An estimated 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students, according to the National Education Association, while 35 percent of workers say they have felt bullied at work, according to a CareerBuilder survey.

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Throughout October, in observance of National Bullying Prevention Month, Walden University will be raising awareness of this important national issue by showcasing the expertise of its faculty, alumni and students who bring dedicated research, hard work and passion to this subject. The general public is invited to join the Walden community in attending events and accessing resources about bullying.

On Oct. 1, 7 p.m. Eastern time, Walden will host a live webinar, “Bullying: When Communities Respond to a National Issue” featuring Colleen Logan, Ph.D., LPC, LMFT, NCC, program coordinator for Walden’s M.S. in Marriage, Couple, and Family Counseling program, and Jason Lum, J.D., M.P.P., faculty member in the School of Public Policy and Administration. Joined by Florida State Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, co-founder of the Big Bend Anti-Bullying Task Force, the panelists will discuss the impact of bullying on public policy, social justice and advocacy initiatives.

“Bullying is no longer limited to the classroom or the playground. It’s everywhere, 24/7, and the damage is profound and can impact a person during childhood all the way into adulthood,” said Dr. Logan, who specializes in the personal and societal impact of bullying. “By recognizing National Bullying Prevention Month, Walden University is actively engaging in this national discussion about how to stop bullying so we can work together to make a positive change now.”

A live Facebook chat about bullying in the workplace with Stacee Reicherzer, Ph.D., faculty member in the School of Counseling and Social Service, is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 16, 7 p.m. Eastern time. Topics such as workplace bullying, cyberbullying and bullying within our schools are also addressed in research, published articles, on-demand webinars and handouts available for download at www.WaldenU.edu/bullyprevention.

About Walden University For more than 40 years, Walden University has supported working professionals in achieving their academic goals and making a greater impact in their professions and their communities. Today, more than 48,500 students from all 50 states and more than 140 countries are pursuing their bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees online at Walden. The university provides students with an engaging educational experience that connects them with expert faculty and peers around the world. Walden is the flagship online university in the Laureate International Universities network—a global network of more than 60 campus-based and online universities in 29 countries.

Walden offers more than 65 degree programs with more than 330 specializations and concentrations. Areas of study include health sciences, counseling, human services, management, psychology, education, public health, nursing, public administration and information technology. For more information, visit www.WaldenU.edu. Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association, www.ncahlc.org.

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http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/26/4857718/walden-university-observes-national.html

Brandon DeMarco is an average teenager in an ordinary High School that becomes the target of relentless harassment and vindictive cyberbullying. His story’s been seen by thousands of students all over the globe.

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The long-term effects of bullying can be extreme.
Source: Supplied

I WAS bullied at school. This was the 1960s and it was seen then as part of growing up.

You didn’t dob or you’d be hammered behind the shelter sheds. You didn’t tell your parents as they would simply say it was part of learning to be a man.

To be a man, I joined the school cadets. It was here that I understood what institutionalised bullying was all about. If you wore a peaked cap and had pips on your shoulder epaulets, that sanctioned you to do exactly what you liked.

I was humiliated and beaten. I lasted a year. I still have an aversion to seeing army uniforms.

It was some comfort that when I left school and began training as a teacher that I realised that there was a raft of literature devoted to bullying. I was not alone. I read of Australia’s legendary ballet dancer Robert Helpmann and how he was bullied unmercifully at school because he could dance.

And I read with gut-turning revulsion the frank admission of the historian Manning Clark, how when he was a student at Melbourne Grammar, the terrors of the notorious long dorm were visited on him and he was subjected to what he described as the “theatre of cruelty”.

When I became a teacher I entered the classroom feeling for the broken and bereft, the small, the timid, the socially outcast, the dull, the nerdy kids and the students who were gay.

The daily terror that gay boys felt of being discovered or even suspected is a lingering reality. It still continues today. If you are called a “fag”, you will be a school leper.

This is why the campaign against bullying of all kinds is long overdue.

When I began teaching, computers were not commonplace. Cyber bullying was unknown, not to mention texting or sexting. It is hard to imagine a more pernicious and devastatingly insistent form of harassment. It only takes one word, one image.

When I taught girls and boys, I was stunned by the savagery of girls. This was not physical beating, common with boys and my own direct experience, but in the subtle word said in a whisper at the back of the classroom. Then there were the looks.

It took the merest glance, shared among a group of girls to communicate eloquently, an

opinion of a singled-out girl ready for pecking until she broke. It was calculated, sinister and utterly effective.

When you talk to people about school life, those who loved school were generally not bullied. Those who didn’t often were subject to the kind of insidious drip, drip of a daily torture that frequently caused the victim to underachieve. The unfairness of this is obvious.

In every school children are bullied. It is not good enough to say that it comes with the territory of growing up, or if you can’t cope then you are not strong enough, manly enough or – in the case of girls – smart enough, stylish enough or strong enough to know how to deal with it.

Even schools with well established bullying policies are not immune from the wind-up in the corridor, not by the muscled thug or the peer group-leading little Miss, but the student who gets a kick out of watching someone suffer.

I have seen this in English schools and in Australia. Bullying reduces individuals. It demeans the spirit and makes them less than what they can be, often for life. For this reason alone, we all should take the pledge.

Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer and a senior literature teacher at Trinity Grammar School, Kew

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/the-effects-of-bullying-last-forever/story-e6frfhqf-1226245799979

An 18-year-old honor student accused of shooting a 16-year-old at school yesterday was in court this morning for the first time, KTRK-TV (Channel 13) reports:

North Forest High School student Warren Lewis, 18, faces an aggravated assault charge. His family says he had been bullied by three older students and was trying to defend himself when he brought the gun to school. It’s still not clear how the gun was slipped past metal detectors there.

Lewis, a senior,  was subdued without incident by a teacher who also is a deputy constable,  Sue Davis, a spokeswoman for the North Forest Independent School District,  told the Chronicle’s Zain Shauk.

The condition of the 16-year-old, a freshman, was stable, she said.

The shooting “was apparently the result of a dispute between a group of students that started off-campus and continued onto the campus,” Davis said.

The 16-year-old was not part of the dispute and was not the target of the alleged shooter, who managed to bring a gun onto campus despite metal detectors.

This morning, Lewis told the judge he has been repeatedly bullied by students and was in fear of his life, KTRK reports:

“He was so scared that he felt like he needed to protect himself because he said these boys carry guns and have been known to shoot people,” said Lewis’ mother, Yolanda Domino.

Lewis’ mother apologized to the victim’s family. The mother also said she and her son repeatedly reported the bullying to NFISD. The district says it is looking into the bullying accusations.

Read more: North Forest ISD officials to require clear backpacks at high school

Houston police respond to the shooting at North Forest High School on Tuesday. (Melissa Phillip / Chronicle)

http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2012/01/accused-north-forest-teen-says-he-was-bullied/

In an infuriating instance of life imitating art, an unnamed high school student in the Alpine School District of Utah was outed to his family this week — not by peers or bullies, however, but by his school. After the the student referenced his sexual orientation in a school project and teachers overheard cruel comments from his peers, the school district decided to contact the boy’s parents and let them know about his sexual orientation as a precaution for potential bullying. The student is 14 years old, and is described as being “nervous” when school officials told him about their plan. He eventually agreed to let them proceed, although he insisted on being out of the room when his parents were told.

The school’s decision was immediately controversial; while the boy’s parents are described as “supportive,” they’re also keeping him home from school “until the controversy subsides.”

In the aftermath of 15-year-old Larry King’s murder by a fellow classmate, King’s mother claimed that if the school had somehow “contained” her gay son’s “behavior,” he might still be alive today. The school officials in the Alpine School District don’t appear to have tried to discipline or “contain” their student, although a teacher did take him aside when his assignment clearly referenced his sexual orientation and confirmed that it was intentional and okay. But their actions do seem to reflect the panicked atmosphere around gay bullying — district spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley described the school’s actions as being “proactive” against bullying. How will his parents’ knowledge (and the ensuing controversy) prevent the kind of bullying that has driven too many kids to suicide and self-harm? How is their school now safer for this student and others who may identify as queer because of this decision? The answers to those questions aren’t immediately evident, definitely not to us and probably not to district officials, either. The implication seems to be that they had to do something – that if they had overheard other kids making fun of this student’s assignment and done nothing, they would be just as culpable as the dozens of other school officials who saw bullying problems and did nothing, and then ended up weeks later at funerals for the children they didn’t protect. What else were they supposed to do? Aside from notifying his parents with their concerns about potential bullying without mentioning their child’s sexual orientation, which seems extremely possible to have done.

As well-intentioned as the school may have been, however, the truth is that outing this student (even with his cajoled “permission”) isn’t in any way an appropriate or an effective response to bullying. As GLSEN explained in their reaction to the incident:

“Outing a student not only violates their right to privacy, but also could compromise their safety. Parents can be notified of their child being bullied at school, but without disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity… Taking away the choice for an LGBT student to come out on their own terms opens the door to significant risks including harassment at school and family rejection. Schools should be able to provide LGBT students with support and resources in order to make an informed decision if and when they decide to come out to their school community and family.”

The Alpine School District may be one of the first examples of a new facet of the teen gay bullying problem: that schools may fully understand the problem of gay bullying and be genuinely motivated to combat it, but simply not understand enough about their queer students’ lives to do a good job — and may in fact make things much worse. As GLSEN points out, for many young people, home is the least safe place in the world to be out. From the outside, it seems like almost pure luck that this student happened to have supportive parents; the school’s decision could easily have ended in an intractable home life or worse, a lack of home life at all if the student was disowned, kicked out, or sent to an ex-gay program. But, as the school noted, the student was out in the classroom — without specific education on queer issues, or “cultural competency,” it may not occur to a school official (or any straight person) that queer people of all ages make very careful and deliberate choices about exactly how out we are in each part of our lives. Being out in one sphere, like work or with our friends, in no way implies that we should also be out in any other place. It in no way implies that being out in any other sphere is safe.

So far, there have been plenty of stories about school districts that apparently don’t care about the torment their students are living with, like Michele Bachmann’s own district, Anoka-Hennepin. But what about school districts who care, and truly don’t know where to start? Looking at this story — and looking at the fact that the student is now missing weeks of school because of the controversy — a few things seem evident. First, that the student’s wishes should be respected: the student themselves knows better than anyone what s/he is experiencing and how they would like it to be dealt with, and making that decision for them is at best disrespectful and at worst irresponsible and dangerous. As GLSEN’s statement says, support, resources, and the ability to make an informed decision are some of the best things you can do for any young person anywhere. If the school district knows that they aren’t sure what to do with GLBT issues, and it seems clear that Alpine doesn’t, why not ask the kids who would know?

But second — and this is important — what happened to the bullies? The Salt Lake Tribune reports that “…an adult aide overheard other students making negative comments to the boy about being gay. An assistant principal admonished the students for their comments.” That’s the last we hear about the bullying students for the rest of the article. If bullying and harassment of gay students is a problem, and it is, how hard is it to admit that the problem lies not with the gay students, but with their bullies? Why were these kids “admonished” once, and the boy they teased waited alone and terrified while he was outed to his parents in a separate room? What would have done more to prevent bullying from happening again — a gay student being outed as gay to his parents, or bullies being outed as bullies to their own?

When Larry King’s mother lamented that her son wasn’t “contained” by school officials for his own safety, she is obviously speaking from a place of grief, but also implying something heartbreaking: that he really was somehow ‘asking for it,’ that if he had acted “normal,” he would not have deserved the completely, totally, utterly undeserved thing that was done to him. And when school districts, or any adult, make a student’s sexual orientation the center of the discussion when it comes to gay bullying, they’re buying into that ideology. That the root of the gay bullying epidemic is “gay,” not “bullying.” And no matter how sincere their good intentions, young people deserve better than that. A 14-year-old in Utah is at home right now, kept there by his supportive parents who for now at least feel that it’s the best way to keep him safe and protected — and the students that he was originally thought to need protection from are still in the classroom. From here, that seems like a different kind of bullying, not its solution.

http://www.autostraddle.com/outing-gay-utah-teen-did-not-solve-gay-bullying-school-finds-124771/

The majority of parents are worried their children will be bullied at school.
Source: Supplied

BULLIED children are turning to martial arts to combat classroom thugs – and coming out on top in other areas.

Sobukan Martial Arts director Chris Gillies, of Mitcham, said children who trained in martial arts learnt techniques to avoid bullying behaviour.

“A lot of the reasons people get bullied is they don’t have high self esteem or confidence,” he said.

“Martial arts give them confidence and the ability to walk away.”

Mr Gillies said that in his 20 years of teaching martial arts in Australia and Japan, he had taught many bullied children.

“Through martial arts, children become familiar with consequences, and they learn about power relationships,” he said.

Sixteen-year-old Angelo Belmonte, who has an intellectual disability, had been bullied in violent attacks his entire school life, until he started to learn the Korean style of tang soo do at the International Combative Martial Arts Academy in March.

His mother Pina Belmonte said the training had improved Angelo’s problem-solving, memory, balance and confidence.

“He hasn’t used the actual martial arts (at school), but it has helped his confidence,” she said.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/bullied-kids-turning-to-martial-arts/story-e6frea6u-1226213190372

<!–enpproperty http://www.china.org.cn/world/2011-10/31/content_23772800.htmwww.china.org.cnThe officials of the Obama administration met with hundreds of local parents, teachers, students and community leaders at a bullying prevention summit Saturday to address the safety of Asian American, Pacific Islander and Muslim American students.2011-10-31 11:25:10.0White House battles bullying at UES summitAmerican,US,Asian,students,Muslim,bullyingWhite House battles bullying at UES summitWhite House battles bullying at UES summit10077075229Top News/enpproperty–>

The officials of the Obama administration met with hundreds of local parents, teachers, students and community leaders at a bullying prevention summit Saturday to address the safety of Asian American, Pacific Islander and Muslim American students.

Racial bullying [Photo: Hispanically Speaking News] 

These students are more likely to be targets of bullying than some of their counterparts, the DNAinfo.com reported.

White House officials said that nearly one-third of all school-aged children are bullied each year, or about 13 million students.

“Post 9/11, bias-based bullying toward religious and immigrant communities has been a consistent issue, and it continues to be under reported,” Thomas Mariadason, an attorney at the Manhattan-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said in a statement.

The day-long summit included a panel with representatives from Facebook, MTV and Common Sense Media, who discussed online bullying and how to stay safe on the Internet.

“We’ve seen the egregious effects bias-based harassment has on students when there is a failure to intervene, from the violence at South Philadelphia High School in 2009 to reports we received in years past from the former Lafayette High School in Brooklyn,” Mariadason said.

“The problem persists, and it is a critical time for the White House to address these issues” he said.

The event aims to raise awareness about harassment of Asian and Muslim Americans, encourage students, parents and advocates to report such incidents and discuss possible solutions, according to federal officials.

The city’s teachers union recently unveiled a new anti-bullying hotline for kids.

http://www.china.org.cn/world/2011-10/31/content_23772800.htm

Bullying – Cyber Bullying, school bullying, etc. This video was necessary after yesterday’s news article about a 3rd grader bringing a gun to school to protect himself from a bully. 3rd Grader Brings Gun to School: goo.gl CyberBullying Article: goo.gl TUMBLR About Me/Equipment: wilsontech1.tumblr.com DAILY iPHONE VLOG Channel: youtube.com LIKE me on Facebook: facebook.com FOLLOW me on Twitter: twitter.com AUDIO Podcast: lifepluggedin.com OUTRO performed by Charlie Puth Music: Bas

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GC School District Addresses Cyber Bullying Concerns

Written by Melissa Argueta

Friday, 20 May 2011 00:00

Committee Offers Findings and
Recommendations to Board of Education

No matter what village, city or state, school bullies have remained an unwelcome part of the educational landscape for generations. But did you know that in a 2010 survey conducted by Scholastic Administration.com, 21 percent of middle and high school students in the United States have received mean or threatening email messages and 14 percent have received mean or hurtful comments online?

Members of the Garden City School District’s Cyber Bullying Committee addressed the hot-button issue and presented a series of findings and recommendations to the Board of Education at the May 10 work session at Garden City High School.

Last September, the Committee, co-chaired by Dr. Fino Celano, assistant superintendent for personnel, and Dr. Rita Melikian, director of technology, was charged to take this growing and evolving topic and create an action plan for the district to follow, which includes offering educational and outreach programs.

Cyber bullying has gained increased public awareness and media attention due to the rise in teen suicides with incidents on Long Island and across the country. In the presentation, the term “cyber bullying” was defined as the “willful and repeated harm of a person inflicted through electronic devices. Cyber bullying can be used to torment, threaten, harass, humiliate, embarrass or otherwise target a victim by using Internet, digital technologies or mobile phones.”

The committee recommendations call for developing a comprehensive Internet safety and anti bullying program for all grade levels from elementary to high school. In addition, a revised and updated code of conduct/computer use and board of education policy was deemed necessary. It was also suggested that the district identify a building point person(s) who both staff and students can go to and implement cyber bullying outreach programs to parents during transition meetings in grade eight and nine and grade five and six. In the committee’s findings, it was recommended that the administration maintain a district-wide cyber bullying committee and offer educational programs for students, staff and parents.

Board of Education Trustee Laura Hastings asked members of the committee about the legal nexus between incidents of cyber bullying that occur outside the school and within the school. Hastings asked, “Say there’s a posting on Facebook in the evening, and the next morning, all the girls are whispering about that posting, which is about another girl…Can you step in? Can the school step in?”

Dr. Celano responded that the school can and does step in those kinds of situations because the whisperings make that student very comfortable. “So it would fall under the category of bullying, continuing from the cyber into the school. And it’s also a disruption of the educational environment. On that basis, the school does have a nexus to be able to impose a consequence, even though initially the activity took place outside of school at home, which it often, often, often does with cyber bullying. These things are not happening, for the most part, in school; they’re happening outside of school,” Celano said.

Hastings also asked if parents know the true consequences of cyber bullying. “Parents might step in a little quicker if they knew something their kid put on Facebook the night before has a consequence even in school. How do parents learn those consequences?”

Dr. Celano explained the district is introducing the message to parents through the website, newsletters and via the PTA, which sponsors presentations to parents. He explained a scenario where teenagers who are ‘sexting’ may be sending inappropriate pictures of themselves to a boyfriend or a girlfriend and the couple breaks up.

“That picture is then sent in anger to everyone on that contact list that that person has. That action is a crime and it is considered a sex offense. It is considered to be creating and/or distributing child pornography, and therefore, kids have been convicted of that have gone to jail for years and are now, for the rest of their lives, on the sex offender list. That’s just one example of how serious this and how severe the consequences are,” Celano said.

School Board Trustee Tom Pinou said the presentation was “a real eye-opener.” Trustee Angela Heineman echoed that sentiment and asked what the district’s principals have experience with the issue.

Garden City High School Principal Nanine Cuttitta said the administration has to know about the incident to help. “Students feel that if they tell the school or their parents tell the school, it’s only going to get worse,” she said, adding, “I would say cyber bullying, in particular, maybe five to eight issues that have warranted disciplinary infractions in maybe the past two years.”

Cuttitta maintained that if an incident of cyber bulling comes to the school’s attention, the matter will be discussed with the student and his or her parents. The school will then follow-up with an official warning letter in writing and, if the behavior continues, the incident will go on the student’s permanent record. “I’m happy to say in almost all the time that works,” Cuttitta said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen said the administration has also discussed how cyber bullying can create a hostile culture in the school and can be negative for all students. He also stated that the district plans to work with faculty, parents and students to get the message out that “we will not tolerate a hostile environment where kids feel that they have to look over their shoulder, either literally or figuratively, to have a good day. And that we can, to the best of our ability, we can ensure that the good feelings they bring to school in the morning, they leave with at the end of the day,” Feirsen said.

http://www.antonnews.com/gardencitylife/news/15350-gc-school-district-addresses-cyber-bullying-concerns.html

Bullying is no Joke and can lead to dangerous things. Don’t take it seriously? How’s this for you then… 1 out of 4 kids is Bullied. The American Justice Department says that this month 1 out of every 4 kids will be abused by another youth. Surveys Show That 77% of students are bullied mentally, verbally, & physically. In a recent study, 77% of the students said they had been bullied. And 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe (bad) reactions to the abuse. 1 out of 5 kids ad

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