Bullying Legislation, At Last…*

A comprehensive anti-bullying legislation is, at last, law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is now, however, up to the schools, the parents, and the kids themselves to take all the necessary steps to eliminate bullying from our schools, our streets, and cyberspace.

I’ve written numerous blogs on this topic, beginning with the 2006 suicide of Megan Meier, who hanged herself three weeks before her fourteenth birthday. It took more than a year of prodding and prompting by Meier’s parents to get an investigation into the matter. Megan’s suicide was attributed to cyber-bullying through the social networking website MySpace. Lori Drew, the mother of a classmate of Meier, was later indicted in 2008. But in 2009, Mrs. Drew was acquitted on the basis that there “are no laws making the cyber-bullying, harassment and abusive actions” of Mrs. Drew a felony.

In 2009, 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover was found by his mother hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of their Springfield, MA home. The boy had been bullied and taunted daily at school, yet despite the pleases of his mother, nothing worthwhile was done to prevent this from continuing to happen to the boy.

The last straw seems to have been the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, MA. Her death prompted a vociferous call for action. Four months later, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed the new legislation (one, I might add, with some teeth), includes anti-bullying initiatives in student handbooks, classroom instruction, and strict new rules for reporting incidents of bullying. The law includes:

• training adults on how to identify, prevent, and manage incidents of bullying
• new reporting requirements for all school staff to “fully and swiftly detail any instance of bullying or retaliation to the appropriate school official”
• directs the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to establish statewide academic standards that include instruction in bullying prevention and requires schools to provide age-appropriate instruction on bullying prevention

Each school district is also required to provide targeted professional development to all teachers, administrators, athletic coaches, bus drivers, and custodians on the prevention, identification, and appropriate response to bullying incidents.

Will all this help? While laws will not stamp out bullying altogether (we need only look at the vast majority of laws continuously broken to know this to be true), laws can reduce drastically the number of incidences and give victims of bullying much needed protections.

Have a joyful day everyone. - Rita
Visit my website at http://www.ritaschiano.com

*Written for KidsTerrain.com. Reprinted with permission.

Wake Up, America, Our Kids Are Dying...

A couple of nights ago I was awakened at 3:45 a.m. by a torrential rainstorm. After the intense thunder and lightening subsided, and still unable to get back to sleep, I turned on the television and began flipping through the channels. That mindless activity halted when my ears pricked up upon hearing an unfamiliar word: bullycide. Understanding instantly what the word meant — suicide as a result of bullying — I grabbed my eyeglasses so that I could watch the news report.

Later in the day, I spent a few hours researching the Internet for bullycide stories. Actually, when you Google "bullycide stories," the result reads "about 26,100 for bullycide stories." Eventually, I ended up on You Tube. I still get goosebumps thinking about the plethora of videos I discovered there. I’d like to bring two of the videos to your attention.

A Cruel and Needless Death…

As this story continues to be in the news, I decided to share my thoughts on this as posted originally for KidsTerrain's Expert Blog Series last November...

I’ve been mulling over this topic for several days now, trying to wrap my mind and emotions around this horrific story. It is sad enough when a child feels so despondent that the only alternative is to take one’s life. But, in the case of Megan Meier, knowing that a parent…a neighbor who lived just four houses down from the child…played a part in this child’s death overwhelms me.

Megan’s parents were not neglectful; they did not allow their daughter unfettered access to MySpace. According to journalist Steve Pokin of the St. Charles Journal, Megan’s mother monitored quite closely whom her daughter added as a friend to her MySpace page.

The cyber-friend was ‘Josh Evans,’ a sixteen-year-old, good-looking boy (a fake photo) who claimed to live nearby and who was home-schooled. With her mother’s permission, Megan began on online friendship with ‘Josh.’ Once Megan’s trust was gained, the contact from ‘Josh’ grew nasty and vile. ‘He’ posted comments such as, “Megan Meier is a slut.”

The truth of this story may never have been known had another parent—who learned of the phony account from her own daughter who had access to the ‘Josh’ profile—not told Megan’s parents about the hoax several weeks after Megan’s death.

What sticks in my craw, not only in this case, but in the virtually unrestrained world of cyberspace, is how, once again, the law is not protecting our children. The woman who created ‘Josh Evans’ phony profile has not been charged with a crime. She allegedly told the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department she “created Josh’s profile” to gain Megan’s confidence and find out what Megan was saying about her own child online.

There is no law on the books to hold the neighbor-parent responsible for her actions. And it has taken nearly a year for the Megan Meier story to hit the national and international news. Megan’s parents are now leading the charge to create more legal safeguards for children on the Internet.

Incidents of cyber-bullying seem to be growing exponentially. For parents and teachers, dealing with child bullies is tough enough. But when the bullying of a child is done by an adult—a neighbor, a child’s friend’s parent—it’s enough to make me want to throw the right to privacy out with the bath water.

(Posted originally on 11/29/07 for KidsTerrain)