City school officials say anti-bullying effort working

Staff writer

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Schools in New Mexico counties are combating bullying in compliance with state law and officials say they are seeing positive results.

The state Public Education Department requires every school district and state-chartered school to implement bullying prevention programs, according to the education department’s website.

The website defines “bullying” as “any repeated and pervasive written, verbal or electronic expression, physical act or gesture, or a pattern thereof, that is intended to cause distress upon one or more students” on school properties or at school events.

Bullying can include “hazing, harassment, intimidation or menacing acts,” the state statute says.

All schools are required to train teachers, staff and students on how to recognize and report bullying, and how to resolve and even prevent bullying.

The Portales school system has made bullying education part of the health curriculum, starting in the elementary schools, said David VanWettering, assistant superintendent.

VanWettering said school counselors are showing students how to interact with other kids and display proper behavior.

“Our health teachers and counselors teach the kids how to recognize bullying and how to stand up to it,” he said. “The most powerful way to combat bullying is for bystanders to stand up.”

VanWettering said counselors visit with small groups of students who have bullied others or have been bullied to show them how to deal with issues in a positive manner. These efforts help, he said, but they do not eliminate bullying.

The program “has been successful in helping us to better recognize bullying and give us the proper training and tools to deal with it,” VanWettering said.

Teachers have also received training to identify bullying and what to do if they find it.

The fifth- and sixth-grade students of Lindsey-Steiner Elementary School in Portales receive education on bullying in a 10-week curriculum that is taught two days a month, said Tammy Hunton, a student counselor. The program’s goal is to develop empathy and help students understand the effects of bullying, she said.

“It’s more than a matter of educating them about the problem,” she said.

“It’s about teaching them the need to stop the problem.”

Hunton said students learn that the consequences of bullying are serious. In most cases, she said, the victims resort to harmful behavior themselves; they often become bullies. In extreme cases, she said, suicides have occurred.

Along with how to identify bullying, she said, students learn how properly to intervene in a bullying incident without escalating the situation.

Hunton said the school has also instituted “Buddy Benches,” where students who are new, are having a hard day or just need a buddy, can sit.

Students who see someone on the bench can talk to that person or invite them to play, she said. The schools raised money to have the benches placed and at lunch once a week for 12 weeks, teachers monitored the benches to ensure that students needing a buddy found one.

Hunton said school staff also reach out to students who exhibit bullying behavior. Hunton said she will then counsel these students on more positive ways to express themselves and develop better social skills. She said the counseling is an element in the disciplinary component of the school’s anti-bullying program.

Dennis Roch, a New Mexico state representative and Logan Municipal Schools superintendent, said he held school assemblies related to bullying early in the school year.

Roch said during the assemblies, he stressed why children should not engage in bullying. Bystanders to acts of bullying, he said, are part of the problem if they do nothing to try to stop it.

“I encouraged the students to not be by-standers but to be ‘up-standers’ and stand up for someone who they see is being bullied,” Roch said.

Roch said he has made sure to include cyber-bullying in talks to the children. He said there have also been posters placed in school hallways discouraging bullying and promoting student cooperation.

“So far this message has worked well with the children,” Roch said. “I have seen students stand up for another student in front of their peers.”