Police offer anti-bullying lessons to schools

Published 7:50 am Friday, February 22, 2008

Nobody likes a bully, but according to statistics from Sgt. Michelle Bennett and Deputy Jessica Sullivan of the Shoreline police, bullying is common place in many schools.

• An estimated 160,000 children do not go to school every day because they afraid of being bullied.

• Children who are identified as being a bully by the time the are eight-years-old are six times more likely to be convicted of a crime by age 24 and convicted of a serious crime by age 30.

• Two-thirds of school shooters said that prior to their attacks they felt persecuted, bullied, attacked, threatened or injured.

In response to a request from the Shoreline School District last year, Bennett and Sullivan have designed a curriculum to help schools prevent and remedy bullying among students.

“There’s been band-aid programs before that don’t address the issues, but we went a little bit further…There’s always been a need,” Bennett said.

The curriculum, called “Take a Stand Against Bullying,” consists of a training program for schools and School Resource Officers, classroom lessons, an intervention program for kids identified as bullies, a support program for victims, policies and information for parents.

According to Bennett bullying can include a variety of actions, ranging from tepid to extreme.

“We define bullying in four parts, physical, verbal, property and sexual…The actual definition is to intimidate a person or subject them to hostility or ill treatment actions that cause another person to fell afraid, humiliated, embarrassed or shamed,” Bennett said.

Examples may include ignoring or isolating another person, teasing, fighting, asking inappropriate jokes, theft and extortion.

Take a Stand was tested and evaluated in several King County schools last year, and Bennett said the response from the students and teachers has been really exciting.

“We got really positive feedback from surveys from the students…some said ‘I didn’t know I was a bully,’ and ‘I’m glad I’m not alone…’”

The officers said they also received e-mails from schools all over the country including New York, Virginia, and Alabama expressing interest in learning about the curriculum.

At the same time that Bennett and Sullivan began working on the anti-bullying program, a state bill was passed requiring all school districts in Washington to change or include anti-bullying policies in their schools by August 2003.

Marjorie Ledell of the Shoreline school district said that some of their schools have already adopted parts of Bennett and Sullivan’s curriculum, in addition to updating their bullying and harassment policies.

The updated anti-bullying curriculum will be piloted in the Shoreline school district this year.

Bennett is working towards her doctorate in education at Seattle Pacific University, where she will use the results of the anti-bullying curriculum in her dissertation.

The program will be released in October at the “Train the Trainer” conference to any school or school resource officer who is interested. The conference will be held October 11 at Shoreline Center from 8AM to 5PM.

For more information, call Bennett 206-546-6678.