Bullies issued warning by public school programs

What’s the best way of dealing with bullying? Don’t put up with it.

For education leaders and law enforcement in the Tri-parish area, fighting bullies has become part of an overall effort to make schools a better place for safety and learning.

The St. Mary Parish School District and St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office anticipate strong parent participation during their scheduled bullying summit today at 9 a.m. at the Bayou Vista Civic Center.

Led by co-coordinators Jacki Ackel and Diane Wiltz, of the local Safe and Drug Free Schools program, area residents are being offered an awareness presentation by guidance counselor and anti-bullying expert Chuck Staufler of Safe Schools for All out of Bath, Maine.

Staufler’s presentation was promoted as identifying traits of a bully, responding as a bystander and offering tips to victims on how to deal with that destructive behavior.

“I think bullying is present in every school, every community, every neighborhood,” Ackel said. “We’re trying to be proactive [in dealing with it].”

“We have not done a formal needs assessment, but we do get complaints and calls from principals, and teachers, and parents,” Wiltz said. “We are hoping from this summit that parents can ask questions and share their frustrations.”

“You just start worrying about it when you see what’s happening everywhere else … and now it’s happening here,” St. Mary Parish Sheriff David Naquin said of students taking violent measures against others or suicidal actions toward themselves with bullying being at the root of the action.

“We have a safe schools coalition with the school board. It is all the law enforcement and community leaders,” Naquin said. “We want to stay on top of [bullying] before it becomes an issue.”

The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office has confirmed receiving an increase in the number of bullying complaints from local students this year, although all schools in the state have no-bullying policies.

Law enforcement in Terrebonne Parish expanded the work of its D.A.R.E. officers, who typically focus on anti-drug programs, to increase their efforts and address bullying as well.

“It is not an everyday occurrence,” said Maj. Malcolm Wolfe, public information officer for the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Wolfe explained that local law enforcement in all Louisiana parishes work with local school districts to head off bullying activity. He confirmed that bullying comes in many forms including physical attacks, psychological abuse, such as excessive name calling, and spreading of rumors. And with new technology, the increased use of computers and cell phones to send threatening and hate messages has offered bullies a new avenue of attack.

“With the Internet, it is something kids feel they can get away with by not having face-to-face contact,” Wolfe said.

“You’ve got this Facebook and other stuff and kids are obsessed with that and what is [said to them] on it,” Naquin said.

“I know there are cases, but what qualifies as many?” asked Terrebonne Parish School District child welfare supervisor Ernest Brown of bullying in general and responding to being asked if it is common in his schools. “We tell students to report anything or anybody that puts them in an uncomfortable situation.”

Lafourche Parish School District child welfare supervisor Ray Bernard said they are taking a hard-hitting approach in dealing with bullies.

“One of the things that is required by law is that the school board has to have in its students’ code of conduct things that prohibit harassment, intimidation [and] bullying. Also included this year for the first time is cyberbullying,” Bernard said.

Tri-parish school districts have established policies that require students, teachers and all school employees to immediately report to their supervisors alleged acts of bullying. From there informal investigations are conducted and if the problem persists law enforcement is brought in to deal with the situation.

“We are talking about serious acts of bullying, intimidation, harassment and hazing,” Bernard said. “Things that would cause physical danger, and humiliation, and boundary testing, things of that nature.”

Bernard said that when it comes to cyberbullying, school officials in Lafourche Parish have specified that even if a threat or bulling by use of a computer or cell phone takes place off campus or on a weekend, officials there can and will become involved.

“If it occurs off school property but it effects the student on school property and during the school day, then [the offending] students can be held accountable for it through administrative sanctions,” Bernard said.

Officials dealing with bullying stressed that this behavior is not a one-time event, but one in which a pattern of aggressive behavior has been established toward a specific target-victim.

Neither school officials nor local law enforcement have statistical information on past bullying activities, but according to new federal mandates they are required to begin keeping record of bullying reports, the nature of the incidents and what action was taken this year.

While all school levels experience bullying, school officials said it is most common among the middle school demographic. “We find that most of our discipline problems are more in the middle school levels,” Bernard said.

Educators speculated that it is during the middle school age that children are trying to establish their own identities as they mature and suggested that might be a reason that bullying seems to escalate at that age level.

“Bullying in school age children has reached epidemic proportions and is a major public health issue,” Staufler said prior to today’s workshop. “The abuse we call bullying is not just a school issue. The roots of bullying reach deeply into the culture of our communities and nation. Dealing with it requires a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained public health approach that engages the whole community.”

In turn, school officials, law enforcement and concerned parents claim they are willing to knock a few sticks off some bullies’ shoulders to address violence in their schools and make them places where safety and learning are the priority.