BULLYING Bullying
ference,” said Sameer Hinduja, a Florida Atlantic University professor who co-directs the Cyberbullying Research Center. “I’ve worked with a lot of educators, and I think we’re seeing the fruits of those labors. I think it’s encouraging.”
But even though the number of incidents in schools is declining, some campus cases have led to extreme results.
At Sunrise Middle in Fort Lauderdale, two 13-year-old boys told police they had been bullied and were suicidal, which is why they brought a .357 Magnum revolver, knives, 59 bullets, fireworks and a mask to school Feb. 27. One said he was “made fun of, called names” and “physically assaulted.”
While they told police their plan was to kill themselves, the large number of weapons had police fearing they were planning something else. Broward officials declined to say the exact discipline for the students, who were taken into police custody, but said the charge was serious enough for expulsion.
Julia Carlin, a high school senior in Wellington, said, she, too, considered suicide after being harassed. She said the problem began in the seventh grade Polo Park Middle, and included “text messages from a girl threatening to beat me up.”
She said she developed depression, bulimia, anorexia and started cutting herself. She eventually went to G-Star Charter School to get away from her classmates and while there made a film about her battle with and recovery from eating disorders.
She became the school’s first freshman to win a schoolwide film contest and was then asked to make a schoolwide music video. She said that made some older students jealous and led to “a lot of hate written on my YouTube channel.”
She changed schools, received counseling and says she is now doing well.
“I think it’s one of the worst problems there are in school,” she said. “It goes on all the time. Now when I see bullying going
at SunSentinel.com/ Schoolsafety2014 on, I’ll stand up for whoever is getting bullied.’’
While all three districts say teachers have been instructed how to deal with problems early on, they have different standards of what they report as bullying. Palm Beach turns in all reported incidents, regardless of their merit. Broward only includes incidents determined to be bullying following an investigation, which could explain its significantly lower numbers.
“We do so much training that the majority of name calling and pushing is getting nipped in the bud,” said Aimee Wood, a prevention specialist in Broward. “Name calling certainly happens, but it’s not allowed to go on and escalate.”
But Natasha Gonell said that was not the case in Sunset Lakes Elementary in Miramar, where her kindergartner came home with bruises on his back and fingernail marks on his neck.
“A boy tried to strangle me, mommy,” her then 6-year-old son told her. That year, Gonell says, a boy in her son’s class would punch him, throw his lunch on the floor and call him a “stupid loser.”
Gonell said she rearranged her work schedule to volunteer in her son’s class and “every day that I was there, there was something happening. It was just constant.”
She ultimately had the boy, now 7, switch schools. She also created a Facebook support group that eventually became a nationwide nonprofit, Anti Bullying Zone, that works to change strengthen antibullying laws.
“We want to make the schools a safe place,” she said. “That’s a serious problem, kids are afraid to go to school.”
But Broward officials say they are seeing many positive signs. Students who have been disciplined for bullying and other offenses go through an intervention program called Promise, which has been successful in stopping repeat offenses, Wood said.
South Florida districts also have developed programs to assist those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, who historically haven’t felt supported in their schools.