Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Bullies Rule the School Award

From the Houston Chronicle
...An 8-year-old second-grader in Houston, Texas, who said he'd been bullied for months, reached his breaking point when two boys yanked down his pants in front of their class. The unidentified boy jumped from a school balcony. Fortunately, he survived the leap. The school made the boy sign a no suicide contract before his mother arrived promising not to try to harm himself again without first talking to a “caring and supportive adult” at home or school. The teacher aware of the bullying had met with his mother seven times and did nothing to stop it.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

USA TODAY - A 'Watershed' Case

This is a great article:

...The Mohawk Central School District in Upstate New York agreed last week to do more to protect students from harassment as part of a settlement with a 15-year-old gay teenager who said he was bullied so relentlessly he had to change schools. The district also will pay his family $50,000 and cover the cost of counseling services.

In a landmark cyber-bullying case, a California state appeals court ruled last month that free speech doesn't protect legitimate-sounding threats online. The ruling supported a lawsuit by the father of a 15-year-old whose classmates at a Westlake prep school posted death threats and anti-gay rants on the boy's website.

What's the solution? Many experts say there's no substitute for a clear, vigorously enforced school policy on bullying, supplanted by periodic training of the entire staff, from guidance counselors to teachers and lunchroom workers.

Last month, the Massachusetts House and Senate passed different versions of anti-school bullying legislation that the regional office of the Anti-Defamation League says could emerge as the nation's strongest. It would not criminalize bullying, but could mandate an anti-bullying curriculum in schools; training of teachers and staff; and reporting of potentially criminal bullying to law enforcement.

To read the whole article from the beginning go to:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-04-bullying_N.htm

Friday, April 02, 2010

NY State of Bullying: State Legislature rates 'F'

NY State of Bullying: State Legislature rates 'F' for laws to protect schoolkids: Bully Police

Wednesday, March 31st 2010, 2:19 PM

Bully Police, a national watchdog group, has given the Empire State its lowest possible grade for not passing a law to protect schoolkids from bullies.

It’s not that the state has buried its head in the sand. Legislators have been working on a bullying law for a full decade now. But it has yet to pass.

Why?...