A look at bullying

PINE PLAINS — Bullying and harassment are a problem at every school in the country. It’s an issue that sometimes erupts in national coverage, like incidents at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. But often it is an issue that affects countless students, every day, in nameless school districts around the globe.

Tara Horst, the high school principal in the Pine Plains Central School District, organized an informational presentation on bullying and harassment, held Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 6:30 p.m. in the Stissing Mountain High School auditorium.

The presentation was for school staff and adults in the community. It was mainly given by county sheriff’s Deputy Todd Grieb, who is the Student Resource Officer (SRO) for the Wappingers school district.

The presentation covered what constitutes bullying and harassment, as well as the effect that it has on a school district and what can be done to prevent incidents from occurring.

The main duty of SROs, Grieb explained, is to be there to talk to students. He reported that he had up to 1,200 calls for service annually at different schools, and that almost 50 percent of those calls are for issues involving bullying.

With the widespread social connections that students now have on the Internet, different types of bullying and different kinds of bullies are becoming more and more of an issue in schools.

Grieb said that issues online — which mostly happen out of school, then become incidents when school starts the next day — have increased in frequency.   Teachers have no prior knowledge of the incident and can’t respond as effectively.

The biggest bullying problems are happening in middle schools, Grieb said. Contrary to popular belief, girls are more likely to bully than boys, and the kind of bullying they participate in (social and verbal rather than physical) is often more harmful.

The focus, Grieb stressed, was to promote peer intervention during incidents. There aren’t enough teachers and staff to monitor a situation, and there is little supervision outside of school hours.

“Bullying is a learned trait,� he said. “There needs to be a schoolwide commitment rather than cracking down on individual bullies.�

Horst explained that this presentation was only the beginning of what she hoped would be a very involved outreach program to combat problems with bullying and harassment.

Rachel’s Challenge, an outreach group that started as a result of the Columbine massacre, recently came to the district to give a presentation to students and community members.

Horst is looking to put together a committee made up of staff and community members interested in talking and collaborating on directions the district should take to deal with violence in the schools. Anyone interested can contact her at the Stissing Mountain High School at 518-398-7181.

“We can create a more friendly and welcoming tone in the school,� Horst told those in attendance, “so students take risks and feel more comfortable. We’ll then try to push the information down to the elementary schools. The younger you start, the more successful you are.�