Bullying prevention coordinators focus on working with schools
Parents or administrators with concerns about bullying can call Patricia Marquez at 636-2853 or email
pa******@yo******.org
. Schools interested in starting the Olewus bullying prevention program at their schools can email Al De Vos at
ad****@co**.us
.
A handful of Facebook pages focused on gossip about local middle school students – and created by an anonymous poster – were no longer available on the social media website as of Tuesday. A search on Facebook no longer brings up the sites that had included photos of middle school students with derogatory captions, a list of crushes between students as well as a list of students who were intended for further teasing in the coming days. Local parents, administrators and law enforcement officials expressed concern about the pages when several new gossip pages focused on Marguerite Maze and Rancho San Justo went up on Facebook last weekend.
“Some people may have the perception that because it’s not direct or being done directly to the person – any gossip or things that are said behind their backs – then it’s not harmful,” said Al De Vos, the gang prevention coordinator for the county who also oversees bullying prevention outreach to local schools. “In reality, online bullying can be more harmful or just as harmful. The mystique is that it is out there and the whole world can see it.”
De Vos said that schools do have the right to deal with bullying that is done online or by text, even if the messages are sent outside of school hours if the behavior has a significant impact at the school.
De Vos said a bullying prevention program has not been implemented at either of the Hollister middle schools that were the target of the Facebook pages. He said Rancho San Justo administrators are planning a staff training in October and he was hopeful that they might be able to work with Marguerite Maze Middle School in the future.
The bullying prevention programs are based on the Olewus technique, which requires teachers and staff to receive training so they can recognize and respond to bullying behavior consistently. The school creates a specific rubric of what the consequences are for different types of behavior so that there is a clear understanding of what is acceptable and what is not. The kids participate in a kick-off event along with their parents and community members, pledging not to bully others as well as to report instances of bullying to an adult at school and at home. Staff and administrators have been trained at seven local schools in Hollister, San Juan and rural parts of the county, as well as nonprofits such as the YMCA and the Youth Alliance.
“Our strategy was to start at elementary schools and go up from there,” De Vos said.
Patricia Marquez, who serves as the county’s bullying prevention coordinator, said she heard about the Facebook pages initially from student volunteers who help at the Youth Alliance.
“My hope is that something good can come out of it and we can take it as a learning opportunity,” she said.
She said she has not heard of many incidents of cyberbullying in the time she’s worked with the program, but she said she has been working with a younger population of elementary school students.
“It’s definitely something we really want to shed light on,” she said. “It’s a relatively new issue for many of us. It’s really important for parents to reach out for help. It’s important that they document everything – whether it’s saving a Facebook page or saving a text message.”
Marquez said, however, the focus of the programs in the schools is really prevention first. She suggested parents can help by keeping in touch with what their children are doing, finding out what they are doing on social media sites or who they talk to on the phone.
“What kind of conversations are they having?” she said.
Marquez said she is a resource for the community, even for families that do not attend schools where the bullying prevention program has been implemented. She works with both students who have been subjected to bullying behavior as well as those who have been perpetrators of the bullying behavior.
“We want to make sure students are receiving help and those exhibiting these behaviors get help as well because they are equally important,” she said.
On Monday Interim Police Chief David Westrick said he was uncertain if it the pages were a law enforcement matter and said he understood how a company such as Facebook balances free speech into the equation. Westrick described how the gossip pages included some “scandalous stuff” such as name calling but that it was “kind of light” as well. He said a department officer had been assigned to look into the pages. The department and parents had been working with Facebook to have the pages removed, but Westrick said on Monday afternoon that it sounded as though the page creator had committed to removing the pages.
