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.

Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems. A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe.

It remains unclear why Billy became a target at age 12; schoolyard anthropology can be so nuanced. Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry.

Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents: Curt, a senior data analyst, and Penney, the owner of an office-supply company. They have binders of school records and police reports, along with photos documenting the bruises and black eyes. They are well known to school officials, perhaps even too well known, but they make no apologies for being vigilant. They also reject any suggestion that they should move out of the district because of this.

The many incidents seem to blur together into one protracted assault. When Billy attaches a bully’s name to one beating, his mother corrects him. “That was Benny, sweetie,” she says. “That was in the eighth grade.”

It began years ago when a boy called the house and asked Billy if he wanted to buy a certain sex toy, heh-heh. Billy told his mother, who informed the boy’s mother. The next day the boy showed Billy a list with the names of 20 boys who wanted to beat Billy up.

Ms. Wolfe says she and her husband knew it was coming. She says they tried to warn school officials — and then bam: the prank caller beat up Billy in the bathroom of McNair Middle School.

Not long after, a boy on the school bus pummeled Billy, but somehow Billy was the one suspended, despite his pleas that the bus’s security camera would prove his innocence. Days later, Ms. Wolfe recalls, the principal summoned her, presented a box of tissues, and played the bus video that clearly showed Billy was telling the truth.

Things got worse. At Woodland Junior High School, some boys in a wood shop class goaded a bigger boy into believing that Billy had been talking trash about his mother. Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness.

Ms. Wolfe remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved. Most of all, she remembers the sight of her son.

“He kept spitting blood out,” she says, the memory strong enough still to break her voice.

By now Billy feared school. Sometimes he was doubled over with stress, asking his parents why. But it kept on coming.

In ninth grade, a couple of the same boys started a Facebook page called “Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe.” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Heh-heh.

According to Alan Wilbourn, a spokesman for the school district, the principal notified the parents of the students involved after Ms. Wolfe complained, and the parents — whom he described as “horrified” — took steps to have the page taken down.

Not long afterward, a student in Spanish class punched Billy so hard that when he came to, his braces were caught on the inside of his cheek.

So who is Billy Wolfe? Now 16, he likes the outdoors, racquetball and girls. For whatever reason — bullying, learning disabilities or lack of interest — his grades are poor. Some teachers think he’s a sweet kid; others think he is easily distracted, occasionally disruptive, even disrespectful. He has received a few suspensions for misbehavior, though none for bullying.

Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him. For example, Billy and the boy who punched him at the bus stop had exchanged words and shoves a few days earlier.

But Ms. Wolfe scoffs at the notion that her son causes or deserves the beatings he receives. She wonders why Billy is the only one getting beaten up, and why school officials are so reluctant to punish bullies and report assaults to the police.

Mr. Wilbourn said federal law protected the privacy of students, so parents of a bullied child should not assume that disciplinary action had not been taken. He also said it was left to the discretion of staff members to determine if an incident required police notification.

The Wolfes are not satisfied. This month they sued one of the bullies “and other John Does,” and are considering another lawsuit against the Fayetteville School District. Their lawyer, D. Westbrook Doss Jr., said there was neither glee nor much monetary reward in suing teenagers, but a point had to be made: schoolchildren deserve to feel safe.

Billy Wolfe, for example, deserves to open his American history textbook and not find anti-Billy sentiments scrawled across the pages. But there they were, words so hurtful and foul.

The boy did what he could. “I’d put white-out on them,” he says. “And if the page didn’t have stuff to learn, I’d rip it out.”
Online: A slide show of Billy Wolfe at nytimes.com/danbarry.

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Please ask the following committee members to support this important resolution.
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Kirby:There’s only one gang where membership has all the privileges

“The purpose of the Rangers was protection from Elwood Street’s resident bully. Howard was nearly 12 but still in the fourth grade. He enjoyed waylaying kids walking home alone. “

Vern Larsen brought us great news just minutes just before the resolution was brought up in the Senate Education Committee, that The State Board of Education had voted unanimously to support the resolution.

ALL Children Have The Right to Feel Safe at School.
It is OUR job to protect their rights!

Senator-D Patrice Arent and Rep-R Ronda Menlove are COOL! Reed Cowan gave another dramatic testimony including the unbelievable news that just hours earlier a teen was caught with a .45 caliber handgun at Union High in Roosevelt, the very same school where Reed was bullied for the balance of his 12 years in rural public schools.

Listen to audio of the Senate Education Committee hearing

This will be a tough fight in the House. We MUST continue to speak out!

Contact your Representative

Tell YOUR story

ALL Children Have the Right to Feel Safe at School!
360 names and counting. Please send the petition around to all your friends.

Please register your support for this resolution.

Add your name and/or organization to the list of people who encourage our legislators to sign this resolution.

You may also email your Letter of Support to:
Senator Patrice Arent patricearent@utahsenate.org
Cliff Lyon cliff@mybully.org

Governor Huntsman
The First Lady
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
The Utah Education Assoc. (UEA)
State Board of Education
The State Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
The Human Rights Education Center of Utah
The Jordan Board of Education
Salt Lake City School District Chair Peggy Jo Kennet, “We support the resolution.”
Superintendent Mikell Withers, “I support the concept”
NCCJ
NAACP

Pending
Granite Board of Education (Meeting February 7)
Salt Lake City School Board

“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!

Register your URGENT support for this resolution NOW!

This is a great thing because recent studies have shown that feeling safe at school may in fact be the single best way to not only increase student grades, but also reduce crime.

Kids deserve to feel safe at school, and it is the responsibility of our legislators to protect our kids.

After Colombine, Colorado led the way with a slew of studies that found some very interesting things. Fact is, bullying begins in kindergarten and it not an urban thing. After a Secret Service study showed that 75% of school shooters were harrassed at school, the research (read money) picked up.

WaPo article says it all.

Even the American Medical Association is SCREAMING about it!

Since 2001, 23 states have passed anti-bullying legislation. 9 states are considering laws this year. Utah will NOT leave our kids behind!

Click here to register your support for this resolution.