Granby01033

 In the last 10 years, my high school has had one suicide. It was the worst experience I've had in the last 17 years of teaching. A ethnic Italian with a close circle of friends and relatives, Franco's death had emotional ripples throughout the community. The morning after his death I looked on as his normally happy, boisterous friends, kids who played soccer with him, kids who grew up with him, sat in my classroom and cried or just sat in a daze of grief.  There wasn't much I could do.

Thankfully, my school has a plans for such emergencies. We had learned of Franco's death at an emergency faculty meeting that afternoon. Emergency messages on purple paper are handed out by an administrator or guidance counselor. The purple tells us there's an emergency, but not something to share with students. School ended with an emergency faculty meeting. We were told that the blue team, a group formed to deal with unexpected deaths and other problems that present a psychological threat to the school community, had been convened. They would meet before school the next day, and we would have another emergency faculty meeting before classes started. We received a list of students who were likely to be strongly affected by Franco's death. We were asked to keep a close eye on our students for any signs of trouble or upset in our students and email their names to the office. My contribution to the list was Chris, a student who almost started a fight when he said people who commit suicide are selfish. One of Franco's friends took exception. I was able to talk to him and tell him the reason Chris had made the statement was that his grandfather had committed suicide.

Our administration called in a suicide expert. We were told to discourage vigils, which they tend to romanticize suicide and encourage kids who might already be considering taking their own lives. After the suicide, our first goal was make sure that no other suicides resulted. Our second goal was to take care of the school community. We signed up for times to be at the wake to support our students as they came to pay their respects. In short, we supported our kids. We were there for them. We kept a track of them.

It is this kind of action and leadership that also discourages bullying in our school. Bullying, of course, happens in every school, and mine is no exception. But our administration, our school resource officer, and our teachers deal with it. If something happens over the weekend, we learn about it. Kids get called into the office before something happens at school. This is simply maintaining good discipline. A well-run schools knows its kids, knows what's going on in their lives, and helps them through it. To this end, our administration and guidance counselors (and perhaps our special education teachers, I'm not sure) meet once a week to discuss at-risk students.

Our principal and school also survey students once a year. Students are asked about bullying, how safe they feel, where they don't feel safe, and if they feel connected to an adult in the building. Every year we consider the statistics at a faculty meeting and talk about what we can do or do better. Perhaps the most effective action we take as teachers is to be present in the hallway during passing time when bullying is apt to take place. We also interact with kids when they are in the hallway. We make ourselves a presence in their lives.

I wince when I read about South Hadley's handling of the bullying of Phoebe Prince and her suicide. Phoebe was on the school's radar as having some adjustment issues. It's possible that she showed no signs of suicide; it's also possible that someone missed the signs. Considering the way the school system has handled the situation, I'm guessing that the high school blew it.

Bullying has evidently been a problem at South Hadley High School for a couple of years. The administration either knew or should have known this. Their response now is to create a task force. Maybe the school will finally get its act together. This stuff isn't rocket science. It isn't easy, but a good administration working with a school resource officer can keep track of social networking sites (law enforcement can get special access). Complaints about electronic bullying could and should have been investigated. The school should have an up-to-date policy on bullying. It should have been administered.

The  Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso lists 3 traits of bullying:

1.   Imbalance of power. The bully has more power. He or she is older, bigger, stronger, more verbally adept, higher upon the social ladder, of a different race, or of the opposite sex. Kids can engage in mean and hateful behavior, but without a power differential, there is not bullying.

2.   Intent to harm. Bullying is malicious. The bully intends to inflict emotional and/or physical pain, expects the action to hurt, and takes pleasure in witnessing the hurt.

3.   Threat of further aggression. Both bully and bullied know that it will occur again. It is not meant as a one time event.

If bullying escalates, and newspaper reporting suggest that in Phoebe's case it did, a fourth element is added.

4. Terror. Systematic violence and threats are used to intimidate and maintain dominance in order to create terror in the heart of the target.

If South Hadley High School decides that the solution to bullying is to exhort students to come forward and just say no to bullying, the student body is doomed to more of the same. There is no alternative to a coherent set of policies, which all public schools have (and I'm willing to bet they're almost identical), and effective supervision of students. Low intensity bullying will exist for a long time to come (I don't like the word always); however, an effective school will prevent what it can, punish what it can't, and take care of our kids.