Thursday, May 8, 2008
As a follow-up to this personal post about how I was bullied as a child, I did a little research. Here's what I found:
Florida is currently working on the toughest anti-bullying law ever.
Although many school districts in Florida... have anti-bullying policies, the law would require each of the state's 67 districts to adopt a policy that complies with the new requirements by Dec. 1.
The law would not spell out which categories of students need protection, a fact that spurred debate in the House, but instead says that bullying or harassment of any student or school system employee for any reason is prohibited. Districts would be allowed to identify categories of students if they choose.
''When you start just putting categories in place, you'll never have enough categories to cover every child, so why don't we say that no child should be bullied,'' said Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, who sponsored the bill. ``The fact is all children will be protected.''
In a 2005 national survey of students ages 12 to 18, about 28 percent reported having been bullied at school during the prior six months.
The proposed law mandates that each district's policy have in place a procedure for reporting incidents of bullying or harassment and the consequences.
Here's the actual text of the proposed law.
Basically it requires schools to have policies in place. Even cyber-bullying is included here.
Sad that it takes deaths to bring our attention to problems, but alas that seems to be the way it is. This law will be named after a 15 year old who killed himself because of bullying.
This brief article about the law has some good statistics about bullying. There's also a really good video clip on the bottom from "The Early Show". It's worth watching.
This story sums it all up for me.
“On April 16, 2002, my son, 14-year-old Jon Gettle, left his home during the night, walked 200 yards to his middle school and hung himself outside the 8th grade hallway. His note said, "Bullying is a problem". Cathy Gettle (NY) – Mother of Jon Gettle
My original post and subsequent comments have led me to start thinking about how to start a ministry for victims of bullying. I just haven't figured it all out yet.
And this video is a reminder of how serious the issue is. (Listen to the words of the song, while you are watching. Multi-tasking, I know, but you can do it :-)
There, but for the grace of God, is where I would have gone.
Philip,
I think it’s a great idea to start a ministry. I'm going to send my son’s youth minister and our intern this video. I’d love for them to be able to email you. Texas and Oklahoma aren’t that far and even though we come from different churches I think that this is very important.
Thank you
I’m praying