Archive for category Bullies

March 24, 2008
This Land
A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly
By DAN BARRY

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.

All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.

Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning. Read the rest of this entry »

KSL Report “Student Brings Gun to High School in Roosevelt”
February 3, 2006

Quoted from the KSL article:

“The teen told Mckenna he was being bullied and needed a gun for protection. But he refused to give details. On Tuesday he also told his friends he had problems.

Henry McKenna: “He was very depressed, very angry about certain things that we’re not sure.”

Eric Dongaard, Student, Union High School: “All I heard was that a kid brought a gun to school because he was getting made fun of at class with a bunch of kids, and got sick of it and brought it to school.”

Since Columbine, a great deal of research has been done. Most interesting was the 2m Secret Service study which concluded that 75% of school shooters were bullied or harassed at school. This is not about gun laws or “pat downs”.

Coincidentally, only an hour before this story broke, a graduate of Union High testified at a Utah Senate hearing on an anti-bullying resolution during which testimony he described being severely bullied at Union High and the fact that NOTHING was ever done about it.

These are our rural Utah schools, and this is the fourth or 5^th such incident in Utah in the past year. Approximatley 250 parents expressed concern in comments on the KSL website after the 3-part series on schoolyard bullying in February 2005.
This problem IS solvable. And the results brings with them, improved grades, and reduced alcohol and drug abuse.

Bullying is a pervasive problem in many schools, and as reflected by the fact that no one commented on that part of the story, I think reflects our myopia toward bullying.

Chances are, the kid with the gun was a pretty gentle kid at wits end, if not scared for his life. The bad kids were the one’s that nearly drove him to an act of desperation.

If you don’t think bullying is a problem just ask your kids. Even then, you will detect a note of resignation or complacency. That’s how bad it is. Kids accept it, teachers accept it, and parents too, unless it’s their kids getting bullied.

The truth is many acts of bullying would be convictable offences if perpetrated by an adult.

Kids have the right to feel safe at school, and it is our responsibility to protect that right.

Studies have shown that the great majority of school violence is the result of bullying.

It is possible to completely eradicate bullying in schools. Its being done in other countries, and its not that expensive. It mostly takes will and commitment on the part of faculty, staff, and parents. When good kids trust teachers to enforce justice and fairness when theirs has been violated, starting in kindergarten, they will stand up to bullies and support their friends in doing so…and the bullies become the protectors celebrated for their courage.

Here’s what YOU can do about it!