- Simmons: Anti-bully Legislation Misguided
- Bullying a Major Problem in Area Schools
- School Design Webinar Series
Simmons: Anti-bully Legislation Misguided
The Washington Times
By Deborah Simmons
October 30, 2011
Nearly every state in the union has — and the District of Columbia is considering — anti-bullying laws that allow school employees to determine whether a student is a bully.
Be careful: If we continue overindulging the anti-bullying movement, our children will be thrown to the wolves in the criminal-justice system.
The problem with the movement is that it calls for transferring to the government our parental authority to raise morally conscious children.
As the Greek wise man Aristotle said, “No government, no matter how good it is, can make its citizens morally virtuous.”
That is why the legislation under consideration in the District, which could be voted on next month, is overkill.
Indeed, I hardly intend to offend, but a youth calling another youth or adult a derogatory name or racial slur can easily be misconstrued if the D.C. bill becomes law.
Ditto for name-calling such as “cripple” and “dummy” and using such phrases as “you talk like a white person” and “that’s so gay.”
What’s next? Terms like “old woman,” “druggie,” “skinny” and “fatso”? How about descriptions like “the short, black woman with the dreadlocks.”
There was a time (not so long ago) when parents would teach their children that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” And we were taught at home that “it’s not the names you are called, but the name you answer to.”
Unfortunately, the harder we seek to relinquish parental responsibility, the smoother the road to perdition.
An unfortunate truth is that our schools are having a difficult enough time trying to teach the three R’s. Yet, whenever an attack or youth suicide involving a gay teen hits the headlines or makes the rounds of social media, as occurred recently in a Ohio high school, the push for anti-bullying rules, regulations and laws kicks into high gear.
However tragic the incidents are, the D.C. measure, titled the Bullying and Intimidation Prevention Act, yanks the rug from parents by redefining harassment, intimidation and bullying as “any gesture or written, verbal or physical act, including electronic communication, that is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or a mental, physical or sensory handicap, or by any other distinguishing characteristic.”
Accordingly, that means calling a girl a girl, a Jew a Jew or a transvestite a transvestite could become unlawful because those terms could be “reasonably perceived” as “distinguishing characteristics” and therefore an act to bully, harass or intimidate another individual.
C’mon, people.
Adults, like kids, use “distinguishing characteristics” all the time.
“Nappy-headed brother.”
“The fat, white guy with the bald head.”
Besides, why transfer our own guiding hands over to the government in exchange for things like the V-chip, which blocks kids from viewing violent TV content, but fail to turn ourselves into V-chips when they use a computer or cellphone? The shrill of the anti-bullying movement could ultimately undermine our authority and credibility as parents to develop crucial ground rules for our children.
If we’re not careful, if we continue to overindulge this wayward movement, we’re going to end up in an awful place, such as having police issue Miranda warnings to kids as soon as they cross the threshold to the principal’s office.
Bullying a Major Problem in Area Schools
The Washington Times
By Lisa Gartner
October 29, 2011
Half of students say teasing, intimidation an issue
School officials are trying to curb bullying in Washington-area schools, which persists as a major problem -- from vandalized property to racial remarks -- new school surveys show.
Fifty-six percent of Fairfax County Public Schools students said they had been bullied, taunted, teased or ridiculed in the past year, and half of the 49 percent of students who admitted to bullying or taunting said they did so more than just once or twice.
At every D.C. public middle school, at least 60 percent of students said they are "made fun of for the way they look or talk" often or sometimes.
In Montgomery County, 54 percent of public middle school students said bullying was a problem in their schools; 46 percent of high school students said the same.
The numbers across jurisdictions have barely budged in recent years -- and in some cases, worsened -- leading school officials to ramp up counseling and explore other intervention strategies.
In November, Fairfax school officials will introduce seven keys to bullying prevention -- like daily education -- that schools must embrace by September. Currently, each school has its own anti-bullying program, but the district wants a systematic approach, said Mary Ann Panarelli, director of intervention and prevention services.
On the just-released Fairfax County Youth Survey, most students said they had been bullied or ridiculed in the past year. The majority who admitted to bullying said they did it once or twice. But 11 percent of Fairfax students bullied their peers 20 or more times, while 6.5 percent owned up to 40 or more instances.
Almost half of Fairfax students said they had heard derogatory remarks about their race or culture from a classmate in the past year, while 43 percent of Fairfax students admitted to making the comments.
"In the years following Sept. 11, our Muslim kids said they had people saying things to them about their religion, and we have a significant Arab population," Panarelli said. "We haven't been able to tease out whether it's a particular group or others."
In D.C., more than half of students at every stand-alone middle school said fights occurred "often" or "sometimes"-- Eliot Hine and Shaw topped out at 81 and 80 percent, respectively.
At Woodrow Wilson Senior High, 85 percent of students said students damaged or stole other students' property at least sometimes. At Ballou, 73 percent said students were teased for the way they looked or acted often or sometimes.
The District and South Dakota are the only "states" without anti-bullying laws. Legislation introduced last year went nowhere, and the D.C. council has yet to act on a similar proposal this session.
Montgomery's public schools have ramped up their reporting of bullying thanks to a Maryland law. Instances of bullying on school property increased from 248 in the 2009-2010 school year to 361 last year, said Brenda Wilks, MCPS's director of student services.
Staff is trained every year, and a number of concerts -- "anti-bullying pulpits" -- have helped spread the message that it's cool to be nice, Wilks said. But she was not sure why school surveys continue to show a troubling presence of bullies.
"To answer that is the million dollar question," said Wilks. "It's an unfortunate thing that we have in front of us."
Parents tend to underestimate how prevalent bullying is in their children's schools. Only 37 percent of parents of middle-schoolers said teasing was a problem for their child, in contrast to 54 percent of students. The spread was 16 percentage points for high schoolers.
"My kids come home and act like everything's fine so I think there's no problem, but they could be having a problem and not sharing it," said Susan Burkinshaw, a Northwest High School and Great Seneca Creek Elementary parent. "The kids are living it. The parents aren't living it, so they don't know."
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