School Bullying Council

CLEVELAND — About 400 Cleveland high school students argued the fictional case of a bullied student in this year’s ‘Mock Trial’ competition at the Justice Center Friday.

It’s the 15th year for the competition, and this time students from 11 high schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District were taking part.

They argued a case involving a bullied student who brought a weapon to school for self-defense. The theme was developed by Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lauren C. Moore.

She talked to the students about one of the most important issues in their lives and at their schools.

“It is bullying. It is insensitivity. It is incivility to each other and we’ve got to stop it,” the judge said.

At the mock trial, teams from the various schools debated whether a fictional student who had been bullied should be convicted of bringing a knife to school to defend himself, should the bully attack him again.

Several Cleveland Municipal Court judges judged the competition, as did Jan Mohat, the mother of a 17-year-old Mentor High School student who took his own life in 2007 after being constantly bullied.

“He was so abused that, on the day he killed himself,” Jan Mohat told the students, ”the bully went up to him and said, ‘Eric why don’t you go home and shoot yourself, it’s not like anyone would care.’ And he did. And his sister found him.”

The students listened in silence to Mohat’s description of the abuse her son endured day after day before he ended his own life.

“People that bully, they need to look inside themselves and see what they are doing is wrong,” said John Hay High School sophomore Autumn Jefferson. ”That’s just a terrible thing to do.”

Glenville High School tenth grader Desmond Barrett agreed. He admitted to having been bullied since the fifth grade.

Barrett, who acted as an assistant prosecutor on one of the student teams at the competition, told WKYC, “I’m not going to lie to you. You try to deal with it, you try to shove it off, but you can’t. It’s a problem and you can face it sometimes, but sometimes you can’t.”

Barrett thoughtfully reflected on the story of Eric Mohat.

“That’s very sad and I don’t know how anybody could do through anything like that,” he said softly. “And I don’t think anybody should ever be bullied at any time in their life. My heart goes out to his famiy.”

The students who took part in the mock trial also signed an Anti-Bullying Pledge that encourages them, among other things, to report bullying immediately any time they see it.

Winners of the trial competition for 2011 were members of team Alpha, from the Cleveland School of the Arts.

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A U.S. District Court case involving a Chequamegon High School student, Rachell Morenweiser, and her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, was dismissed on March 24, according to federal documents.

The lawsuit, filed by Morenweiser and Kennedy against the Chequamegon School District in August 2010, had claimed the district “remained deliberately indifferent” to repeated complaints about bullying by classmates against Morenweiser. The suit also had claimed that school officials had taken action against Morenweiser’s step-father, Timothy Kennedy, employed by the district, when he complained about the bullying to school officials.

Chequamegon School District Superintendent Mark Luoma, High School Principal Todd Lindstrom, and School Counselor Katherine Rybak, one of Morenweiser’s classmates, and various insurance companies had been named as defendants in the suit.

The order for dismissal, outlined by District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb, reads as follows:

each and every legal claim and issue, including cross claims, whether available under state or federal law, which were raised or which could have been raised in this action by any of the parties shall all be dismissed on their merits by the district court, with prejudice, but without an award of costs or fees by the court and without any further notice from or hearing before the presiding district court judge.

http://ashlandcurrent.com/article/11/04/02/bullying-case-dismissed-against-chequamegon-school-district

Published: Friday, February 25, 2011, 8:50 PM     Updated: Friday, February 25, 2011, 8:55 PM

By

Matt Vande Bunte | The Grand Rapids Press

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Rex Larsen | The Grand Rapids PressGrand Valley State University students Friday ask Century Park Elementary students in Grandville to close their eyes and raise their hands if they’ve ever bullied someone. From left, Liz Tanis, Katie Botting, Chris Posthumus, and Danny Patterson.

GRANDVILLE — Like a lot of schools, Century Park Learning Center has a problem with bullying. So, at an assembly Friday, Christy Buck urged students to fight back by being nice.

And when the director of the Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan asked for examples of kindness, one student offered a fitting compliment: “I like your shirt.”

Buck and more than 900 people in Grandville schools and businesses wore “Be Nice” T-shirts Friday as part of the Grand Rapids nonprofit’s inaugural Be Nice Day, designed to put a positive spin on anti-bullying.

“It’s taking the message of being nice and doing it,” Buck said. “Be nice, period. That’s it.”

Buck estimated sales of T-shirts and buttons raised about $5,000 for the foundation’s Live, Laugh, Love program taught by mental health professionals at several area schools. The foundation also was the scheduled beneficiary of a “Throw for Dough” promotion at Friday’s Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game.

Employees at Grand River Bank raised money for the foundation all month by paying a fee to wear jeans on Fridays. The bank also displayed “Be Nice” posters, and staff wore “Be Nice” buttons and T-shirts, said Marcia Borowka, senior vice president of retail banking.

“It’s kind of hard not to be nice when you’re wearing a ‘Be Nice’ T-shirt and a ‘Be Nice’ button,” she said. “It’s a reminder that we all need to be nice to each other.”

Being bullied

– 32 percent, students who reported being bullied (33 percent of girls and 30 percent of boys)
– 7 percent, U.S. students who reported being bullied daily
– 36 percent, bullied students who told a teacher or other adult at school about it
– 4 percent, students who reported being cyber-bullied (5 percent of girls and 2 percent of boys)
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2007 survey of U.S. students ages 12-18

THE LIST
– 21 percent, students who were made fun of
– 18 percent, students who were the subject of a rumor
– 11 percent, students who were pushed, shoved, tripped or spit on
– 6 percent, students who were threatened with harm
– 5 percent, students who were excluded from activities on purpose
– 4 percent, students who said someone tried to make them do things they did not want to do
– 4 percent, students whose property was destroyed on purpose

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2007 survey of U.S. students ages 12-18

Several area schools also got involved, with about 400 Grandville Middle School students and staff buying T-shirts. The school also gave out tickets for an ice cream raffle to students who were caught doing something nice Friday.

“It’s cool that the kids are wearing their shirts,” said Dan Young, a paraprofessional and head of the student council. “It just reminds them of how simple it is to be a leader, to be nice and do the right things.”

At Century Park, six Grand Valley State University graduate students performed a skit about a group of girls leaving a classmate out of their sleep­over party. Fourth-grader Alex Hawley said students made an effort this week to stop name calling and include everybody on the playground.

“We built a (snow) fort, and whoever wanted to play, we said ‘Sure,’” said Alex, 10. “We made a lot of progress on it.

“I’m going to stand up for people (from now on).”

Tonia Shoup, school principal, said students are sensitive about where they stand with classmates, and some kids don’t understand how powerful their words — both bullying words and nice words — can be.

“There’s a lot of emphasis on anti-bullying and, for kids, I don’t think they always know exactly what that means,” Shoup said. “This is a good opportunity to reinforce those good old-fashioned values.”

With the students’ eyes closed, Britney Newell asked who had ever been bullied. Then, the kids opened their eyes and saw almost every hand raised.

“It’s easy to see that everyone has been affected by bullying,” said Newell, 25, a GVSU student who helped for a class assignment. “Today is ‘Be Nice Day,’ but the important message is ‘Be nice today’ and ‘Be nice everyday.’”

At the close of the assembly, wearing his “Be Nice” shirt, one of Newell’s classmates asked the students how they plan to behave tomorrow and the next day.

“How about next Thursday?” Danny Patterson asked.

The students roared back: “Be nice!”

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The Michigan Civil Rights Commission will host a forum on bullying 4-6 p.m. Tuesday at Union High School

E-mail the author of this story: localnews@grpress.com

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/02/grandvilles_fights_bullying_pr.html

Legal maneuvering continued Wednesday afternoon in York-Poquoson Circuit Court in the civil lawsuit brought by a York County mother who alleges that negligence by school officials contributed to her son’s suicide.

The defendants’ lawyer continued his argument that sovereign immunity clears the school officials of liability for simple negligence in the case, and substitute Judge Randolph T. West ruled on access to documents that he had reviewed since the last court date on Jan. 5.

West has given every indication that the case will end up before a jury, and continued to do so Wednesday. No trial date has been set, but West indicated the court will have a permanent judge in place by the time it gets underway.

Alise Williams is suing four current and former York County School Division officials for $10 million for wrongful death. Her son, Christian Taylor, a 16-year-old freshman at Grafton High School, took his life May 31, 2010, and Williams has accused school officials of failing to protect him from bullying at school.

Named in the lawsuit are 2009-10 Grafton High staffers: Principal Paul Hopkins, assistant principals Craig Reed and Karen Fahringer, and counselor Joseph Erfe.

The four defendants were present at the Jan. 5 hearing, but were not called to testify. Their lawyer, David Corrigan, said he was called in advance of Wednesday’s hearing and told they weren’t needed.

“This case is high-profile and you’d have a hard time finding jurors who haven’t read or heard anything about it,” West said. “The more we open up here, the more difficult it will be to find them. After reading the brief, I didn’t think I’d need witnesses to make a decision this afternoon.”

West said the case will go forward with the pleadings as they are, though the lawyers briefly debated sovereign immunity.

West ruled on the availability of documents that were subpoenaed from the York County School Board and York-Poquoson Social Services. He said some of them will be made available to lawyers from both sides, but can only be viewed at the courthouse for note-taking purposes with no photocopies being made.

He further restricted access by warning the lawyers that no one else should see their notes, and denied a request by Williams’ lawyers that an expert witness be allowed to see the documents.

“These are juveniles and I’m trying to protect their names,” West said.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/york-county/dp-nws-bullying-hearing-0217-20110216,0,7979247.story