‘Egregious’ Behavior Sparked Bullying Charges, Says Anti-Bullying Expert

By Bob Oakes
Apr 1, 2010, 7:49 AM
4 Comments

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BOSTON — Three teenagers charged in relation to the death of a South Hadley student are scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday. They’re among nine teens facing criminal charges in what prosecutors call the “incessant bullying” of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide in January.

Because criminal charges are rarely filed in bullying cases — especially against students — the charges put forth by Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel are significant.

Elizabeth Englander, the founder of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, which provides anti-bullying training and workshops in schools across the state, believes that the South Hadley charges could, in certain instances, lead to similar indictments in the future.

“This may give district attorneys more of a motive now, or a precedent to press charges,” Englander said to WBUR. “But I’m going to guess that, generally speaking, unless it’s a really egregious case, most of the time the criminal justice system is going to want to deal with bullying as an opportunity for rehabilitation or education rather than prosecuting kids.”

“When we’re defensive about it, when we deny that (bullying) happens, it’s really the kids who suffer.”

– Elizabeth Englander

And indeed, Englander sees South Hadley’s tragedy as an exceptional, “egregious case.”

“There was a growing sense in the community that the behavior of the children who were bullying Phoebe Prince was maybe so egregious that it really should have been detected and stopped,” said Englander. “I think that was the impetus that really got the district attorney to look at the problem more closely.”

Scheibel’s charges come on the heels of anti-bullying legislation on Beacon Hill. Englander says the school would have benefited from more established anti-bullying procedures.

“If you don’t have a procedure in place, then what can happen is something can be common knowledge, it can be reported, but we don’t know who it was reported to, and we don’t know what they did with that information,” said Englander. “So if schools have a very standard procedure, they know exactly who to bring that report to, and everyone would know what was going to be done.”

She says that standardizing procedures will allow fewer student victims to fall through the cracks. She also says schools should adopt a best-practices approach, learning from one another.

“We have to get over the sense that it doesn’t happen in our school and in our community,” Englander said. “We need to begin talking more about the characteristics of schools that do a really good job in dealing with this and see if we can apply those characteristics across the board, not to be so emotionally defensive about the issue. Because when we’re defensive about it, when we deny that it happens, it’s really the kids who suffer.”

Englander says that her organization has seen an exponential increase in the anti-bullying education programs it offers. But she warns that rules and procedures alone won’t do enough to prevent bullying.

“(Preventing bullying) really has to become part of the school climate and the school culture,” she said. “And we need to help schools more with it. We definitely need to.”

Listen: WBUR’s interview with Elizabeth Englander

Related Link:

South Hadley Suicide Sheds Light On New Era Of Bullying

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http://wbur.org Dave Seaman

The matter of the suicide of Phoebe Prince is a continued issue; as a fifty year old public school teacher I clearly recall Hazing, peer abuse and a general “boys will be boys” attitude from my own youth. The root of this problem stems from how we, as adults, behave in front of children. It starts as high up as adults who throw bricks at politicians with differing opinions; with pro-life bullets bursting through the windows of homes and killing; with the way a parent-the primary educator of a child- speaks and behaves in the home. Our Tax dollars are so poorly allocated that instead of offering free classes in education and parenting methods to parents and increasing allocations for Department of Youth and Family, we spend billions of dollars on a fabricated immigration issue that teaches intolerance. This very same intolerance teaches communities, families and schools, where what is seen as adult behavior is reproduced by our chiuldren. It’s no wonder that suicide is the number one cause of death in Americans under the age of twenty.
David Seaman
Andrea Wilder

I have been a school teacher.
Teachers know what is going on in classrooms, in corridors, in locker rooms
The reporting on this story has been anemic at best.

In school bullying, in school shootings, teachers have the knowledge of what is happening.

Go to the teachers FIRST. If teachers fear for jobs, don’t include their names.

Andrea Wilder
http://www.bulliesguidebook.com Elizabeth Barnes

Many Superintendents of Schools in Massachusetts are stating that their schools are currently equiped with bully-prevention programs such as Peaceful Classroom, Second Step, Open Circle, Quit-It and Bully-Proof. As an instructor of many of these programs, I know that they are proven to reduce bullying and other forms of violence. In fact, they are based on years of research and/or evidence based practice(EBP). They are also designed to include every student, administrator, staff and faculty member as well as parents of students. Unfortunately I have found that this has not been the case. Teachers often leave the room during my bully-proof instruction. Principals are often unaware of the weekly curriculum. In fact,over the past five years, I have never had one Principal attend one of my weekly bully-proof sessions. Parents are even unaware that their children’s school offers a bully-proof curriculum. I have seen many children outside of school in their communities with their parents and when I explain the program that I instruct, many parents have never heard of it. I sincerely hope that the Superintendents of Schools in Massachusetts will revisit their current bully-proof program and hold each school Principal accountable for implementing their curricula on a consistent and inclusive basis; the only way that they have been designed to reduce bullying and other forms of violence.
John Fox

Bullying isn’t an activity that exists in a vaccuum. It has always been around and likely always will be. That it seems to be so invasive today and exercised with such seeming impunity from the wrath of adults, particularly teachers, only speaks of the revolving nature of our society in America, particularly the increasing liberal rights of young people. My brother-in-law, a career high school science teacher of thirty five years tells me of how dramatically times have changed since he first started teaching in seventies, most specifically in the restrictions of the “disciplinary code” that existed when he first started three plus decades ago. The reason teachers ignore these actions is because they feel there is little they can do.