Bullying Puts School Vigilance in Question
A gay teenager in New York wins $50,000 from a school district that failed to stop taunts about his sexual orientation. The Justice Department investigates complaints that administrators ignored racial bullying in a Philadelphia school.
And in Massachusetts, a 15-year-old girl hangs herself after she is mercilessly harassed for months - taunting and threats that school administrators knew about but did not stop.
Now, with nine students charged in the bullying of Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself at her family's home in January, questions have arisen about how accountable school officials should be for stopping bullying.
Barbara Coloroso, a nationally known anti-bullying consultant, had been contacted by South Hadley school officials months before Phoebe's death, after a young boy in nearby Springfield killed himself. She spent a day there in September, training teachers and administrators on how to recognize and deal with bullying.
Coloroso said school officials made mistakes by failing to stop the bullying and, after Phoebe hanged herself, by allowing at least some of the students involved to continue to attend classes and a school dance with no visible signs of discipline.
" I spoke with the educators and parents in the community about how important it was to have those three Ps," Coloroso said on CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday.
"Strong anti-bullying policy; procedures in place that protect the targets and hold bullies accountable; and programs in place that would say 'No more, not here, never' to mean and cruel [behavior] and teach young people how to stand up and speak out."
Coloroso Discusses the Dangers of Bullying
"The questions to ask are: Did they follow their own rules and did they keep Phoebe safe? Obviously not. And, did they deal effectively with the bullies? Obviously not," Coloroso told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Authorities say Prince, who had recently emigrated from Ireland, endured months of verbal assaults and threats after she briefly dated a popular boy. She was harassed mostly in school, but also on Facebook and through other electronic forms.
District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said the inaction of school officials was troublesome but not criminal.
More than 40 states have anti-bullying laws that generally require schools to adopt a set of preventive policies. But Marlene Snyder of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life said laws and policies don't necessarily help if schools don't follow through with intensive training for teachers and staff.
"In defense of teachers, very few of them have ever had training on bullying prevention, much less how to intervene without making the situation worse," she said. "Some people don't understand the dramatic and devastating effect that this kind of treatment can have on a child."
In upstate New York, the Mohawk Central School District agreed Monday to do more to protect students from harassment as part of a settlement with a gay teenager who claimed he was relentlessly bullied.
The boy, described only as 15-year-old Jacob, now goes to another school, and his father said he hopes other districts take note of what happened in the working-class village.
"I wish some other schools would follow in the footsteps of this school and make changes," said Robert Sullivan, who has a different last name than Jacob. "A lot of schools are going through the same thing as this school."
In Georgia, 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera committed suicide at his Atlanta-area home last year after his parents say he was repeatedly tormented in school. School officials denied it and an independent review found bullying was not a factor, but his family rejects that conclusion.
And at South Philadelphia High School, Asian students say they've endured relentless bullying and racial epithets by black students while school officials ignored their complaints. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint in January with the U.S. Justice Department.
In the Massachusetts case, school officials had previously said they did not know about Phoebe's harassment before she committed suicide. They have said some students accused of taking part in the bullying have been disciplined and will not return to class.
Administrators and School Committee members did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment. In a statement, Assistant Superintendent Christine Swelko said "a small group of students" was removed from school Tuesday. She would not say how many or whether they had been expelled.
She said the school, through its anti-bullying task force, was continuing to review its policies and programs.
CBS/ AP And in Massachusetts, a 15-year-old girl hangs herself after she is mercilessly harassed for months - taunting and threats that school administrators knew about but did not stop.
Now, with nine students charged in the bullying of Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself at her family's home in January, questions have arisen about how accountable school officials should be for stopping bullying.
Barbara Coloroso, a nationally known anti-bullying consultant, had been contacted by South Hadley school officials months before Phoebe's death, after a young boy in nearby Springfield killed himself. She spent a day there in September, training teachers and administrators on how to recognize and deal with bullying.
Coloroso said school officials made mistakes by failing to stop the bullying and, after Phoebe hanged herself, by allowing at least some of the students involved to continue to attend classes and a school dance with no visible signs of discipline.
" I spoke with the educators and parents in the community about how important it was to have those three Ps," Coloroso said on CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday.
"Strong anti-bullying policy; procedures in place that protect the targets and hold bullies accountable; and programs in place that would say 'No more, not here, never' to mean and cruel [behavior] and teach young people how to stand up and speak out."
Coloroso Discusses the Dangers of Bullying
"The questions to ask are: Did they follow their own rules and did they keep Phoebe safe? Obviously not. And, did they deal effectively with the bullies? Obviously not," Coloroso told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Authorities say Prince, who had recently emigrated from Ireland, endured months of verbal assaults and threats after she briefly dated a popular boy. She was harassed mostly in school, but also on Facebook and through other electronic forms.
District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said the inaction of school officials was troublesome but not criminal.
More than 40 states have anti-bullying laws that generally require schools to adopt a set of preventive policies. But Marlene Snyder of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life said laws and policies don't necessarily help if schools don't follow through with intensive training for teachers and staff.
"In defense of teachers, very few of them have ever had training on bullying prevention, much less how to intervene without making the situation worse," she said. "Some people don't understand the dramatic and devastating effect that this kind of treatment can have on a child."
In upstate New York, the Mohawk Central School District agreed Monday to do more to protect students from harassment as part of a settlement with a gay teenager who claimed he was relentlessly bullied.
The boy, described only as 15-year-old Jacob, now goes to another school, and his father said he hopes other districts take note of what happened in the working-class village.
"I wish some other schools would follow in the footsteps of this school and make changes," said Robert Sullivan, who has a different last name than Jacob. "A lot of schools are going through the same thing as this school."
In Georgia, 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera committed suicide at his Atlanta-area home last year after his parents say he was repeatedly tormented in school. School officials denied it and an independent review found bullying was not a factor, but his family rejects that conclusion.
And at South Philadelphia High School, Asian students say they've endured relentless bullying and racial epithets by black students while school officials ignored their complaints. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint in January with the U.S. Justice Department.
In the Massachusetts case, school officials had previously said they did not know about Phoebe's harassment before she committed suicide. They have said some students accused of taking part in the bullying have been disciplined and will not return to class.
Administrators and School Committee members did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment. In a statement, Assistant Superintendent Christine Swelko said "a small group of students" was removed from school Tuesday. She would not say how many or whether they had been expelled.
She said the school, through its anti-bullying task force, was continuing to review its policies and programs.
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As for the law enforcement not only do you need to go after the bullies, you need to go after the school who allowed the bullying to go on.
The only thing that changed about the Bullys is They just got older and meaner, Once again I`ll be leaving Clayton New York This time for good. As I sit here writing this and thinking back, I told myself, If I ever got a chance to leave here, I would and never ever come back, I still wonder why the heck did I ever return
Oh Mighty Kreskin! How psychic of you to know what we did or didn't go. Or maybe you're not psychic but ones of those who feel the need to be a jerk online??
Since my post was about the school district's failings and telling the whole story would be a couple of pages long I didn't feel the need to give the whole ugly story. As a matter of a fact we did go to the police but once we removed our daughter from the school the assistant principal who interviewed the bully changed his story and claimed he never told us about the bully's admission. (Funny how he was promoted to principal a few weeks later). Which turned the situation into a he said she said. After the police refused to act we took it to our state Representative, then the Federal Department of Education, ultimately all the way to the governor's office. All we were told was there was legislation pending before the state legislature and to be sure and tell our state rep how we wanted him to vote. The Republican Representative whose district we had the misfortune to live in said something to the effect he felt it was a matter for the individual districts to decide.
And that's only a very tiny part of the hell our family was put through. There don't you feel like a real jerk? Because you should.
Our youngest's entire 1st grade class was held hostage by 1 child who terrorized his classmates for 3 years Unfortunately he had a crush on our child and singled her out. We finally got some response only after I told them the next incident would result in our filing charges. Even then they did the absolute minimum to protect only our child ignoring the other 24 kids in the class. Even after he injured 2 teachers.
We were forced to home-school for 2 years until after much research and soul searching we enrolled them in a neighboring district that actually follows it's own guidelines and protects the children.
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Um, last time I checked, if someone is threatening to kill you or your family....you can go to the police.
That's what I don't get about all of this.
Why don't the parents of the kids who are being bullied, go straight to the doorstep of the kid's parents who are doing the bullying?....and if they don't let up and stop, you go to the police and get a lawyer and threaten to sue them.
I mean seriously...how much is your kids life really worth to you?
Did they sit there and do nothing and just watch it happen? Did they never talk to her to know that she was suffering or that there was something wrong with her?
Man, how oblivious are parents these days?
If anyone should be called to the bar about the Bullies actions, it should be thier parents. THEY are the ones who raised their children to be bullies just as they are. Their lack of interest in their children's lives has allowed the children to make decisions based on the electronic games they are allowed to be played, the violence on the TV tha they watch 6 hours a day, as do the parents who allowed the TV and the school to raise their children.
Throw the parents in jail, put the kids in juvenal hall until the parents get out and maybe, just MAYBE the parents might set up and take notice of what thier kids are doing and becoming.