In what experts say could be a landmark decision, a Michigan school district has been ordered to pay $800,000 this week to a student who claimed the school did not do enough to protect him from years of bullying, some sexually tinged.
This week’s jury verdict against Hudson Area Schools puts districts on notice that it’s not enough to stop a student from bullying another. There needs to be a concerted effort to stop systemic bullying, too.
Essentially, the federal court ruling says schools can be held responsible for what students do, if there is a pattern of harassment or if they don’t do enough to provide a safe environment.
With a vote set today in the state Senate, local lawmakers are lining up behind a bill to require schools to try to prevent bullying and develop plans for reporting and responding to the problem.
“Kids need to know that they can’t bully other kids,” said state Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland. “This is a step that we as adults and we as parents and we as staff of schools can take to show that we are serious about bullying prevention and intervention.”
The legislation, Senate Bill 2313, would prohibit bullying both in-person on school grounds and by electronic means.
The prevalence of cyber-bullying and its psychological impact on non-heterosexual youth has been revealed in a new American study.
According to research carried out at Iowa State University, one out of every two lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender (LGBT) and allied youths are regular victims of “cyber-bullying,” which leads to psychological and emotional distress to victims even sparking off thoughts of suicide in some.
The study will appear in this month’s special LGBT-themed issue of the International Journal of Critical Pedagogy.
The Queensland government says its laws are adequate to protect children and the teachers union says schools have enough powers to deal with bullies.
But parents of bullied students are still coming forward with more horror stories.
Education Minister Geoff Wilson called for “swift action” on the issue of bullying, as the Queensland Schools Alliance Against Violence held its first meeting in Brisbane on Wednesday, convened by child welfare expert Professor Ian O’Connor.
Schools are typically on guard against students who bully by inflicting repeated violence on other students. But technology has given rise to a relatively new form of bullying which inflicts emotional harm in a stealth manner, working through Web sites, chat rooms, e-mail, cell phones and instant messaging.
And according to a new national study by Iowa State University researchers, one out of every two lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and allied youths are regular victims of “cyberbullying,” which causes psychological and emotional distress to victims — producing thoughts of suicide in some who are repeatedly victimized.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Internet was built on freedom of expression. Society wants someone held accountable when that freedom is abused. And major Internet companies like Google and Facebook are finding themselves caught between those ideals.
Although Google, Facebook and their rivals have enjoyed a relatively “safe harbor” from prosecution over user-generated content in the United States and Europe, they face a public that increasingly is more inclined to blame them for cyber-bullying and other online transgressions.
(NOTE: This links to an abstract of a study published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. The study itself is not yet available for free. – Mike)
Agnew’s general strain theory (GST) has received significant empirical attention, but important issues remain unresolved. This study addresses three such issues. First, the authors examine the effects of bullying—a source of strain that may be consequential, but that has been neglected in GST research to date. Second, drawing from recent research on deliberate self-harm among adolescents, the authors examine the effects of bullying not just on externalizing deviance (aggressive acts committed against others and their property) but also on internalizing deviance directed against the self. Third, the authors examine these relationships separately for males and females to assess sex differences in responses to strain.
It’S been seven years, but the way Alannah McGregor sounds when she talks about two of her three children, it could have happened yesterday. Grief sounds like this; tight-chested but calm, with an unbearable sadness seeping through the words.
They were born four years apart, but Stuart, 20, and Angela McGregor, 16, were close. She was the youngest and he was the oldest – they did things together. She was his closest confidant. She defended him fiercely. And they died a month apart.
Workplace bullying did this, says Alannah and her husband, Ray McGregor.
(NOTE: When someone tells you, “They just need to fight back,” refer them to this story, and others, that feature bullying victims who do just that. With weapons. This story, unfortunately, is quite common, and most of them don’t make the news. I have heard of several incidents like this from my contacts with schools and districts that were not publicized. – Mike)
WINDSOR, Ont. — A student at an Ontario high school is in police custody after allegedly stabbing another student in a fight off school property Monday afternoon.
Teenagers who were gathered outside the school said the altercation between the two Grade 10 students was a planned fight that likely resulted from bullying.
The fight, in front of a crowd of students as school let out, became even more dangerous when one pulled a knife, stabbing the other in the shoulder. Windsor police said the weapon was a folding knife with a blade measuring about eight centimetres.
The injured student returned to the school to seek medical help and was taken to a Windsor hospital.
SCHOOLS are asking police to investigate serious student cyber bullying amid increasing complaints from parents about their children receiving hate messages online.
One of Australia’s top girls’ schools has reported “several episodes of ongoing harassment” to police and pleaded with parents to monitor their daughters’ online activity.
Riverside Girls High School in Sydney’s north has told families to report every case of cyber bullying and harassment.
“Each week we receive a notification from a distressed parent about some appalling message their daughter has received from a fellow student or group of students,” principal Judy King said in a letter to parents.
“The author of the vicious personal attack is sometimes known, sometimes not.”
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