Teachers to share strategies to fight bullying with parents

Fort Scott, Kan -- Since the Kansas Legislature passed Senate Bill 68 in May, 2007, schools across the state of Kansas have created anti-bullying policies in an attempt to prevent this intimidating behavior. The USD 234 school district, however, has not stopped with simply implementing a new policy in school.

In April of 2008, teachers in the Fort Scott school district had the opportunity to learn strategies that can be used to prevent bullying. These strategies included: Involving the students in establishing classroom rules against bullying and taking immediate action when bullying is observed. Taking its anti-bullying campaign a little further, the local school district will now offer this much needed education to the parents. On Aug. 25, at 6:30 p.m., parents of local school children will be able to attend an informative anti-bullying workshop in the Fort Scott Middle School commons area, 1105 E. 12th Street.

The workshop, which will be presented by Joe Coles, a consultant with the Southwest Plains Regional Service Center in Sublette, Kan., will explain bullying to parents and provide them with strategies for preventing bullying. In addition, the workshop will educate parents about several ways they can detect whether or not their children are being bullied.

Coles, who also spoke at the April teacher inservice, will be speaking to all USD 234 students on Aug. 25 and 26 in addition to the parent's workshop.

According to Bully Police USA, www.bullypolice.org, which is a watchdog organization, which advocates for bullied children and reports on state anti-bullying laws, the state of Kansas has acceptable anti-bullying laws in place.

In 2000, throughout the state of Kansas, there was a reported 39,685 victims of bullying, according to Bully Police USA. An estimated 16 percent of school populations were being bullied in 2000, Bully Police said. However, the Web site said this percentage may be lower than the actual number of victims.

"Today, many bullying experts and educators believe that these numbers are low, as through the years, violent television, movies, and computer games have encouraged and taught more bullying techniques. It also does not help that many popular comedy shows teach children how to cut and verbally harass one another at home and at school," Bully Police said.

Unless parents, students, school administrators and teachers work together to make the bullying situation change, children will continue to be mistreated by others in school, according to Bully Police.

"Unless concerned citizens ... declare an attitude of change, bullying will continue to be an epidemic all over the United States," Bully Police said.