What Do Bystanders Do When Children Are Being Bullied …And Why do they do it?

This Chapin Hall issue brief on a study of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students that aims to understand children’s behavior when they witness bullying and the reasons why children defend victims, join in the bullying, or avoid involvement. This study was the first to examine the role of social dilemmas in bullying situations. 5 page pdf file.

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How Students Can Break the ‘Code of Silence’

This article reviews the systems used to break the ‘code of silence’ in schools. They include hot lines and e-mail systems. SPEAK-UP is a nationally available resource for anonymously reporting weapon-related threats.

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School Bus Videotape Shows Beating of Boy

Videotape shows a 10-year-old boy being repeatedly punched by two other older boys while the driver continued on her route without stopping. The videotape from a camera on the bus shows two boys taunting and teasing Chester Gala on their way home from a middle school 30 miles north of Detroit, Michigan, then punching him repeatedly.

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When Fear Is Part of School

According to a survey released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6% of high school students in the country said they missed at least one day of school the previous month because they felt unsafe a school or on their way to or from school. That is up from 5.4% in the last survey in 2003. This article profiles students who have experienced violence in school and their and their families’ attempts to get them into safe situations.

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Free Online Training

 The Ophelia Project develops educational and research tools on relational aggression and bullying in schools. For the month of June the Project offers you the opportunity to trial its brand new, one-hour online course FREE. (Wait until June 1 to use this link.) In return they ask you to provide feedback by completing a survey at the end of the course.

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Parents as Bullies

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  reports on a series of physical and verbal attacks by parents on kids and staff in Milwaukee schools. In response to the surge of verbally and physically violent incidents involving adults in the school, the Milwaukee Public Schools took the unusual step of creating a “notice of no trespassing” letter principals can send to parents and other adults who have caused problems in the schools.

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PACER Launches Bullying Prevention Web Site

Second- through sixth-graders can go to PACER’s innovative new web site to learn what bullying is, how to respond to it, and how to prevent it. It is a lively, very interactive site.  PACER (Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights) is a national advocacy organization with the goal to expand opportunities and enhance the quality of life for children and young adults with disabilities and their families.

++++++++++School Bullies Can Land in Court

In Cleveland, parents whose children are beaten of bullied are suing their attackers’ families or schools, according to court filings and experts on school violence. Some want money to pay for injuries. Others look for a sense of justice they didn’t get from criminal trials and school discipline.

++++++++++The Ophelia Project

The Ophelia Project is a national, nonprofit organization to advocate for awareness about relational aggression, to provide educational resources and programs, and to advocate for healthy youth throughout the United States and Canada. There are tons of resources and good information on this web site.

++++++++++One School’s Implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program

At St. Peter’s School in Kansas City every member of the staff has been trained by a national bullying prevention trainer. Parents were brought in for an introduction to the program and students were anonymously surveyed to determine where bullying might be taking place.

Under the new program teachers hold Friday class meetings to discuss problems or issues of concern and students can use an anonymous reporting system to report bullying incidents. When a student gets into trouble, the student is required to call home and tell his or her parent what happened.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is one of the Blueprints Programs, a group of 10 violence prevention programs proven to work and to be replicatible.

++++++++++Students E-Mail Reports of Crime and Bullying

A new web site, www.alertrecall.com, makes it possible for kids to report crimes, potential crimes, dangerous situations, bullying, drug activity, gang fights, and other activities anonymously. The web site is the creation of Phoenix, Ariz., police officer Cecil Jackson.

Within two days of the web site going online a tip led to the arrest of a 17-year-old boy in the shooting of another teen. Since March, when the site went online, 60,000 emails have come in.

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Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) "Urbanized" Olweus Bullying Prevention Program

Since 2001 PSR has been implementing the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in 12 public schools in Philadelphia. A report on this program’s progress was a session at the 14th World Congress of Criminology August 9, 2005. A session abstract appears at the link above, a description of the Urbanized version of the Olweus program as implemented in Philadelphia by PSR.

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Alliance High School – A Special School for Students Who Have Been Bullied or Harassed

Alliance is open to all students, but the emphasis is on those who have been struggling socially or academically because of bullying or harassment. It is among a number of special new high schools to open in Milwaukee this fall as the city redesigns its high schools, breaking large schools into smaller ones, and adding new smaller specialty schools. Smaller learning environments for teenagers are intended to foster closer connections among parents, students and teachers, and to ultimately improve the district’s graduation rate. About 50 new high schools will open through the initiative.

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Bullying Lawsuit in California

In a lawsuit filed this week a California mother is asking the Los Altos School District to take responsibility for what happened to her son at school and is seeking unspecified damages. The sixth-grade boy was pushed and shoved daily at school. When a fellow student threw him to the ground and broke his collarbone the solution school officials offered was to transfer him to another school.

In another such case in 2000, the Anchorage School District in Alaska agreed to a $4.5 million settlement for the parents of a boy who attempted suicide after being bullied as his middle school. He suffered severe brain damage and now requires around-the-clock care.

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Cyber Bullying

I-Safe America, an organization promoting Web safety, surveyed 1500 students in the 4th through 8th grade, and found that 42% have been bullied online. Online bullying is particularly tempting and here are some of the reasons why:

• The illusion of anonymity. Most kids say or do things on a computer that they wouldn’t have the nerve to do in person.
• The number of kids using the Internet makes it the preferred way to communicate.
• It’s easy to disguise your identify and pose as someone else.

The article includes real examples of online bullying and how it was dealt with. It also includes action steps for parents and schools.

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