When bullying is a problem in schools, experts offer some key strategies for dealing with it.

by Julie Bookman

Across the metro area, kids are bullied every day, in quick and subtle ways such as verbal teasing (which tends to be the ways girls are most often bullied), to more physical harm and harassment (boys, generally).  Because bullying is most likely to occur on or near school property, or on the way to and from school, it’s morphed into one more “subject” that schools are expected to teach. It’s a problem that schools are expected to solve.
And schools have indeed stepped up their efforts and their commitment to tackle bullying.
“Bullying will not be tolerated,” says Chantel Mullen, dean of student discipline for Atlanta Public Schools. The district is “committed to the fact that it takes all of us – students, parents, staff and community –
to help end bullying. Our social workers, counselors and psychologists work with students individually and schools as a whole to target bullying.”
She is reminded of a young girl who was recently “picked on by other kids because of the way she wore her hair.” Once the school became aware this was going on, all parties were brought in to sit down and talk about it: the children, their parents, the counselor, principal and even the bus driver who witnessed the bully behavior. “They had to all talk about their behavior and how hurtful it was,” Mullen recalls. “There were letters of apology written. The parents understood what had been going on, and that was very important.”
Bullying “is not just a kid issue, it’s a people issue,” says Jeff Dess, who’s been a prevention specialist and consultant for the Cobb County School District for 23 years.
“We want to teach parents – and adults everywhere – everything that we’re teaching kids. [It’s] four key concepts: tattling versus telling; playful teasing versus harmful teasing; what is bully behavior; and bystander strategies.”
These concepts, lessons and strategies are available for anyone to read at: cobbk12.org/bully.
DeKalb County Schools “has taken the subject of bullying head on,” says Quentin Fretwell, director of the district’s department of safe schools and student relations. Under way is a comprehensive and straightforward bully awareness campaign, now in its third year, that’s about training all stakeholders. The mission is “to change the entire culture,” Fretwell says. “We have to change the overall mindset, and that means that we as adults need to be even more aware of our own actions and understand that just because we are adults, we cannot have the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ mentality.
“You can have rules and regulations and policies in place to deal with bully issues, but if a bully is dealing with the consequences of his actions, that means some child has already been hurt. We want kids to not be bullied in the first place, so it’s about prevention and intervention. We must instill tolerance and understanding that we are all in one society and we all need to help lift each other up.”
There’s a growing movement to take some of the burden off of school staffers – the adults – and put it at least partly on the student body as a whole – the kids.
“The key is the bystanders,” says Clete Bulach, a retired school administrator with 40 years experience. He continues to work with schools in the areas of bullying, “school culture and climate,” and character education. (He spent several of years evaluating “character education” programs for Georgia schools.)
“The bystanders stand around and watch and sometimes even encourage the bully and join in,” Bulach says. “Why? Because it’s not their responsibility. We don’t handle something when it’s not our responsibility. But if you make it so kids are supposed to help control each other, then you change the culture of the whole school.”
Before schools can begin to empower their students more and turn the tide on bullying activity, Bulach says they must measure the extent of their bullying problem. Bullies don’t bully anywhere near an adult, and kids who see bully behavior don’t tell.” He has examined the extent of bullying activity at a number of schools using his own survey – free on his website: westgaedu/~cbulach – and says “survey responses from faculty and students are always night and day, because the faculty doesn’t see bullying and the kids see a great deal of it.” When students can be anonymous filling out a survey, the results are more accurate and revealing, he adds.
Once a school’s administration grasps the realities of the bullying activities, Bulach’s advice is for that school to put students into peer mediation teams – small groups of students who are trained to be peer mediators. “The kids who get bullied can go to a peer mediator, who gets the bully and the victim together, and the peer mediator mediates that dispute. In this way, he says, “kids themselves are taking control, taking responsibility. That can be very powerful.”
Edward F. Dragan, author of  The Bully Action Guide: How to Help Your Child and Get Your School to Listen (Palgrave Macmillan, $16), is also concerned with a school’s “culture” and its role in the bullying spectrum.
“If the culture of the kid at school is to walk by, walk past when they see a group of three girls pushing around another girl who is dressed differently – if the culture in that school is that that’s OK, then that behavior is going to continue,” Dragan says.
“So it’s a combination of being aware of the culture of the school – and that’s the responsibility of its principal and teachers – and how we as adults intervene to modify that culture so that it is acceptable and rewarded for another student to walk up to that kid being harassed, put their arm around that person just to say ‘It’s OK.’ Just that alone can begin to change the culture in the school. The person who does that is what I call an ‘upstander,’ as opposed to a bystander.” Parents are instructed to be fully knowledgeable of their school’s anti-bullying policies.
“Every school is supposed to have a policy,” Dragan says. “Parents need to review it, know it and think of what would happen to their child if up against that policy. For example, if the policy stated that a student can report bullying to the principal and the principal will immediately follow up, then if bullying is reported but there is no such immediate follow-up, then they are violating the policy.”
In his book, Dragan even gives parents a script to follow in the event a call should be made to school to report suspected bullying. “There’s a right way to do it, and it’s not to call and shout to the school secretary: ‘My kid’s been bullied and I want you to do something about it!’”
Ultimately, he says, parents need to stay proactive and fully tuned in – both with the school staff and their children. “Parents need to have their antenna up. If a kid comes in, throws books down and won’t talk about it, that’s a pretty good sign. If your kid doesn’t want to go to soccer practice anymore, that’s a sign there could be an issue.”
Parents and society as a whole, Dragan adds, “need to teach empathy and acceptance of diversity. Those two things are so important when schools and parents are dealing with the development of attitudes of kids toward others. If a kid does not have empathy and is not accepting of diversity, there is more chance that he will bully another person.”
 

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