Lawmakers Battle Bullying
April 10th, 2008 by flanewsLawmakers want to stop school bullying. An anti-bullying bill heading to the House floor requires schools to take a more aggressive approach to bullies and as Whitney Ray tells us, the bill also takes the bully battle to cyberspace.
Hear to here: Lawmakers Battle Bullying
For some kids going to school is a nightmare. Bullies roam the halls intimidating students. Some kids feel they have no where to turn. Assistant Principal Doug Cook said it’s not hard to spot a student whose been bullied.
“You can definitely see it in their expression. You can see it in a lot of emotions in certain incidents students will refuse to come to school,” said Cook.
Representative Nick Thompson is sponsoring a bill requiring schools to set up guidelines to deal with bullies and their victims.
“If an incident of bullying occurs, the bill requires that they notify the parents of the bully and the parents of the child being bullied,” said Thompson.
Parents say keeping them involved would cut down on bullying.
“If somebody’s picking on my child I would want to know and if they’re picking on somebody else I’d want to know that so I could take care of that issue,” said Tabitha Hart.
But sometimes bullying happens online. The bill is named after a Florida Teen who killed himself after two years of being picked on over the internet. Principals say it isn’t easy to control what students do in cyberspace.
“The cyber is something schools are feeling powerless about, we’ll if it happened off campus how can we do something about it,” said Cook.
The bill allows teachers to intervene if bullies use school computers to pick on kids. If the bill passes every school district in the state would have to set up its own anti-bullying policy.
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