Anti-bully bill would head off violence

  • Julie Muhlstein / Herald Columnist
  • Saturday, January 26, 2002 9:00pm
  • Local News

The news was stark, shocking.

A 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in a North Middle School hallway, Everett police say, and a male student was arrested on third-degree rape charges.

The brief article was my initial reason for exploring an anti-bullying bill before lawmakers in Olympia. The measure failed to win passage last year.

I know few details of the Jan. 17 incident. Rape is hardly typical of school bullying, but sexual assault is. Larry Galli, director of student services for Everett Public Schools, described rape as "the extreme of bullying. The ultimate is rape."

A district Title IX officer, Galli investigates reports of harassment in Everett schools.

"It starts with the playground bully," Galli said. "Sexual harassment," he added, "has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with violence and dominance."

Galli lauded his district’s policy on nondiscrimination, which includes training for administrators and counselors. Still, he favors the legislation. House Bill 1444 would require school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies.

"It makes a major statement statewide that we’re not going to tolerate this stuff," Galli said. "And if dollars are attached, it assists people like me to do the training. Reading is extremely important, but treating each other humanely is also important."

The state Senate last year passed the bill, which failed to clear the House. Some Republicans said schools already have the power to crack down. And there were concerns that the law would stifle a student’s First Amendment right to speak out against homosexuality.

"I feel confident we can get it out of the House this year," said Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, a Bothell Democrat who sponsored the Senate version. The House will hear testimony on the bill as early as this week.

"If we can prevent intimidation, harassment and bullying in its early forms, we can prevent the violence that comes later," she said, referring partly to school shootings around the country.

Sunny Moyer, 15, a sophomore at the Alternative Learning Center in Marysville, testified in support of the bill last year, telling lawmakers that in sixth grade she so feared another girl’s threats that she skipped school for a week.

"She didn’t want to go, she said she was sick," said Coni Moyer, Sunny’s mother. "I finally dragged it out of her. She told me she was in fear for her life."

Sunny, who will go back to Olympia this session, is happy at school now and hopes to become a teacher. "If someone calls someone a name, the principal takes care of it in 10 minutes," she said.

North Middle School took care of it when Betty Harrill’s sixth-grader was being verbally taunted.

"A boy was calling her a whore and a slut and spreading rumors about her," Harrill said. "Rachel went on her own and talked to a counselor, and the counselor handled it well."

Galli, a former teacher, said bullying progresses with age. Playground name-calling turns "hard core and graphic" in older kids.

"It isn’t just boys against girls," he said. "In middle school, it’s nothing to go into the girls’ bathroom and find lipstick that says, ‘Sally, you’re a slut.’ "

In high school, the slurs "fag, queer and homo" are hurled about, Galli said. "Bullies look for vulnerable kids. They pick them out and go after them."

When kids are called a name again and again, he said, "their self-worth crashes. Some kids just hole up at home. They can only take so much."

Some schools, including Emerson and Jefferson elementaries in Everett and Voyager Middle School in the Mukilteo district, take a firm approach to discipline through the Make Your Day program.

Created by a former Arizona teacher, Make Your Day has two tenets: No student has the right to interfere with the learning or rights of others, and each student does what is expected the best he or she can.

There are consistent steps for kids who get into trouble.

As part of the program, Emerson principal Cynthia Jones said, there’s time each day for children to speak to each other about behavior that interferes with their learning or safety.

"It gives kids a voice, especially our shy little ones who are the perfect victims for bullies," Jones said. "The kids who are causing the problem hear about it from their peers. I think they learn some empathy. It’s not fun, but it’s really powerful."

Jones is sold on Make Your Day, but still favors the bill, which would:

  • Require Washington school districts to develop a policy prohibiting bullying, intimidation or harassment of students.

  • Be effective on and around school property, including bus stops.

  • Encourage (not require) employees to report harassment or bullying.

    Last year’s version included a training requirement, which McAuliffe hopes will again be added.

    "I don’t have any problem with it," Jones said. "My question is, how do schools respond?"

    About the First Amendment concerns, Jones said, "You’re very welcome to have your opinions and share those, but never in a way that interferes with someone else."

    Do we need this bill when there are already laws dealing with malicious harassment? Do we need another layer of bureaucracy?

    A 2001-02 legislative survey shows that of 243 state school districts surveyed, about 45 percent have no anti-bullying policy, according to an Associated Press story citing the Washington Association of School Administrators.

    A 1998 survey of 15,686 students, run by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, found that bullying affects nearly one in three U.S. kids in sixth through 10th grades.

    An anti-bullying bill won’t end the problem. But it can’t hurt. If it spares any hurt, why not?

    As for freedom of speech, I cannot stand up in this office and call my colleague a slut or a fag. Why should our kids hear that at school?

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