A push is underway to teach St. Ignace middle school students to ask for help if they witness a classmate being bullied at school, as administrators want to focus on teaching them to deal with problems independently, while the school board is calling for putting parent volunteers on the playground and in the gymnasium to watch over student interaction there in light of some 12 reported bullying incidents this school year. The concerns were among topics raised at a school board meeting this week.

Most parents are aware bullying occurs in schools, but they rarely suspect their child might be a victim. It can be alarming, then, when the truth about a conflict surfaces.

“I didn't know about it for a couple of months,” said Lana Lennington of a bullying incident at school involving her son, an eighth grader at St. Ignace Middle School. “I happened to notice some bruises one day and found out kids hit him.”

When her son came home with a head wound from an incident at school about a month later, Ms. Lennington, who had already contacted the school about the situation, called the state police to resolve the conflict. She recently submitted a letter to The St. Ignace News expressing her concerns about bullying, which she said has since elicited a response from many other local parents who share her sentiments.

“This can go on for weeks and weeks,” she said of the beatings. “I don't want St. Ignace to be a statistic on the news because of this. I want policy changes, stricter guidelines for supervision. It needs to come to an end.”

In light of recent bullying incidents at the middle school, Michigan State Police trooper Fred Strich spoke to the St. Ignace school board meeting Monday, April 12, outlining the district’s bullying policy and preventive education programs. Board members and parents were given the opportunity to voice their concerns, as well as ideas for improving the school's policy.

The presentation was also prompted by a recent bullying case at Hudsonville Public Schools in which a judge awarded a fine of $800,000, said Superintendent Mike Springsteen. In the judge's opinion, the school wasn’t doing enough to prevent bullying.

“From that standpoint, our administrators were concerned,” he said. “We wanted to present to the board the policies we have in place, what our policies actually mean in terms of trying to address the issue of bullying, and how we’re dealing with it when it occurs.”

Board members want to bring more parents into the schools to provide more watchful eyes, establishing a volunteer program that would allow parents to supervise school grounds, and starting community wide anti-bullying committee. There are two recess supervisors on staff at the middle school, and three at the elementary school. Supervisors meet with administrators bi-weekly to discuss any incidents that occur.

“There is a need to try to establish an all-volunteer adult presence in the school during the time bullying takes place the most,” said board member Ronn Farr. “I’m not naive enough to say it's only in the playground or gym, but we have to take the first step. I'm excited about this presence of an adult set of eyes and ears on the playground and in the places where the most prominent bullying is taking place.”

School board member Ann Massey said bullying has entered the district as a whole, and it’s important to view bullying as a national and community-wide problem. She supports the idea of having a committee that includes multiple school districts.

She suggested that parents educate themselves in the proper chain of communication to follow in the school district if their child is a victim of bullying.

Some people, she said, do not realize bullying is a problem that should be taken very seriously.

“It's a white elephant issue, and it's too large for our school to deal with alone,” she said. “This is a nationwide epidemic...”

The school defines bullying as “the repeated intimidation of others by the real or threatened infliction of physical, verbal, written, electronically transmitted, or emotional abuse.”

Reports have been made of beatings, group kicking, and intimidation of students at the school.

Mr. Strich conducts educational seminars on bullying for grades three through eight, and also meets with students involved in the more serious bullying cases. Between the middle school and high school, he said, there have been 12 major reported incidents this year.

A three-step approach is used by the school to prevent bullying, he explained. First, students are encouraged to report the incident immediately to an authority figure, and a warning is issued to the bully. If it happens again, a meeting is held with the principal and counselor. On the third time, a group meeting is held that also includes the parents from both parties and Mr. Strich, who said the next step would be a police investigation.

The middle school has a points system ranging from one to seven points for different behavior infractions: One-point offenses include general inappropriate behavior, such as lack of respect or cooperation; two-point offenses include bullying, cheating, provoking a fight, and skipping school, and three-point offenses include physical threats, intimidation of school staff, and theft.

Students accumulate points for offenses over time, and disciplinary consequences are assigned for the following point totals: 0-1, warning and parent notification; 2, oneday detention; 3, two days after-school detention; 4, one-day suspension; 5, twoday suspension; 6, three-day suspension and intervention meeting with parents and teachers; 7+, intervention meeting with parent principal, and outside services in which consequences are determined.

Students Should Get Involved in Curbing Problem, School Says

During training seminars, Mr. Strich encourages students to report bullying incidents. He pointed out that statistics show in any given bullying situation, an average of eight innocent bystanders are witnesses, and that peer pressure can be a major barrier to telling a teacher.

Students who are innocent bystanders should take responsibility for helping to solve the problem, in his view.

“That's what we're putting an emphasis on,” he said. “Students acknowledge bullying takes place, it's just overcoming the stigma to get them to come forward. We [recently] challenged them that the next step would be having more supervision if they can't behave responsibly.”

More adult supervision at the school is something that both parents and school board members have called for.

Ms. Massey agreed that the overall mentality of students toward bullying needs to shift from reacting passively to taking a stand against it.

“We have to change their mental gears,” she said. “These kids are being passive because they don't want to be involved.”

When bullying incidents occur, they should be reported to the school as soon as possible, along with all of the circumstantial facts, said Middle School principal Gregg Fettig. Supporting evidence is needed to take disciplinary action.

“There is always more than one side to any story,” he said. “You can’t proceed to act on somebody said that somebody did something, so you’re going to have to get into the facts.”

Mr. Springsteen pointed out that, in his view, bullying is largely an “eye of the beholder” issue.

“There are different levels of what bullying could be, and people in their minds have a different idea of what bullying is. What would be perceived as bullying to one student may not be for another student,” he said.

That is why school districts around the country are making sure strong definitions about bullying exist and are understood by students, teachers, and parents. That and good enforcement can also give strength to bullied students and witnesses.

Other factors need to be addressed, as well.

Confidentiality, Mr. Fettig said, is a concern of bullied students, as they often fear that speaking up will only make a situation worse.

“You do whatever you can do to make that student feel comfortable,” he said, “talking with them and checking in with them. You try to do things that are confidential so that you don’t bring any negative attention to that student.”

Informational resources on bullying are available for parents, said Middle School counselor Deanna Kreski. She says that sometimes parents feel more comfortable handling situations on their own.

“There are a lot of parents who don’t want to put a spotlight on their son or daughter because they feel that will create a bigger situation,” she said. “You have to do what you feel is best for your son or daughter. I do have resources, and I have given books out, and Web sites they can go to if that’s something they think would be best.”

Empowering students to be selfdisciplined and instructing them to deal with problems independently is at the core of the school administration’s policy, said Mr. Springsteen. While the school is proactive about addressing issues instead of reacting to them, he contended, it’s equally important to allow kids liberty to see if they are self-disciplined enough to behave responsibly on their own.

“If they don’t, you have policies in place to deal with it,” he said.

Monday’s Program Raises

Suggestion of Parent Education

State Police Trooper Fred Strich's presentation Monday night at the school board meeting outlined the school’s bullying policy and preventive education programs, and board members were given the opportunity to voice their concerns. He regularly visits classrooms from grade three through grade eight for bullying prevention seminars.

The school's training encourages students to report incidents, he explained during the presentation, adding that studies show that 90% of bullying incidents that are reported will stop.

Mr. Strich said he believes the majority of the students at school are familiar with the school's policy, but that a lot of bullying incidents are not reported.

“We've given kids the tools,” he said, “but our challenge is getting kids to report. We can't fix it if we don't know it's broke.”

Board President Jane Weiss asked Mr. Strich if, in his view, the school district is preventing bullying more than other school districts because of its policy, and if improvements could be made with more parental involvement.

Mr. Strich said he thinks the St. Ignace district does more to prevent bullying than other districts, but there is room for improvements. He suggested more could be done to educate parents.

“I would support a program where parents sit in the gym and hear a presentation on bullying,” he said.

Trustee David Latva raised his concerns about firsthand accounts he received about bullying in the middle school.

“With bullying in junior high, I've heard firsthand that for the kids that are reporting it there is a double standard,” he said. “They're called narcs. That's got to be put to a stop. We've got to do something about this.”

“All we can do is keep having them report it,” Mr. Strich said in response. “We're not going to eliminate 100% of the bullying, but I think we can eliminate 90%. There has been purported retaliation, and that has been brought up to retaliators, but I've never had people say there has been more retaliation after we've talked.”