School Districts Work To Prevent Bullying

All the other kids with the pumped up kids better run better run, out run the gun of justice! Yes I'm calling out all the bullies! Whether or not you can tell, schools are making efforts to minimize bullying across the nation.  Are we seeing an actual problem in our area school districts?  Yes we are!  Child safety advocate Alison Rhodes gives ideas for parents to identify children being bullied, and keep they're children from being bullied.

From Amarillo Globe News:

“Look for signs of depression, changes in their eating habits, changes in their electronic habits,” Rhodes said in a national panel discussion Friday. “There is nothing wrong with snooping. It’s your God-given right to snoop.”

The list looks like things you might have thought of already, but changes in electronic habits?  I can clear that up actually!  You see, unlike previous generations, children of today can now be bullied while they aren't at school.  Via texting and social networks like Facebook.  So yeah, if your child is suddenly blowing off texts or avoiding Facebook like never before, look into it.  There's a reason they aren't checking texts or going on Facebook as much as they used to.  One of the reasons could be, a bully is "cyber-bullying" them.

Alison Rhodes says:

“When we were kids you could go home and get away from it,” she said. “Now bullies can follow kids into the home.”

This is true!  If your child is suddenly ignoring texts, maybe you should take a look at the messages they are avoiding.  You might see that somebody is threatening them.

From the study, we learn that almost 70% of the nation has reports from parents of kids being bullied, but AISD reported just 313 cases from last year.  Looks like a pretty incorrect number to me!  Either AISD lied, or parents are in the dark about many incidents, meaning the children are hiding the fact that they are being bullied.

Schools obviously don't have a way to monitor children being cyber-bullied or being bullied at home.  Nothing they can really do outside the classroom, so they are asking parents to remember the signs to look for in and around the house away from school.  What are they doing in class to help?

Every elementary school also has a “bully box” where students can anonymously submit notes to the school counselor who then determines if there is a serious problem, Angell said.

He said the district takes disciplinary action if it finds the bullying situation to be a serious problem.

In extreme cases, the student who instigated the bullying or the student who is bullied will be transferred to a different school.

The district has had to move students twice in the last past year, although that number is unofficial because it isn’t a statistic the district has to report to the state, Angell said.

While bullying obviously hurts the student that is bullied, it also affects the person doing the bullying, Rhodes said.

About 60 percent of reported bullies in sixth through eighth grades go on to be convicted of a crime by age 24, according to Fight Crime, a national anti-crime organization.

So what did we learn?  Parents, pay attention to your kid's habits!  Look for the signs listed above.  Students, be vocal, tell somebody your being bullied and who is bullying you!  Bullies, your going to end up in prison or on probation by the age of 24, fix your life now, or be a convicted felon when your my age.  Hey, the choice is all yours!

What suggestions do you have to help prevent bullying in and out of class?  My suggestion, call the bullies out!  Somebody from each school should make a Facebook page that is open for anonymous comments on the wall, this would be a good place for students to submit bullies for the entire city to see!  I bet that would make the bullies take a chill pill!  Imagine your child gets put on the bully list and you got wind of that, you would want to sit your child down and have a talk with them right?  Sometimes, a wheel has to squeak in order to get oil!  The wheel being the bully, the squeak being the bullied and the oil being the disciplinary action taken.