About SSA: SSA In The News

Bullying, Harassment In Your Schools?

Brockport Post
by Terri Green

War. It seems like that's all anyone is talking about these days. Adults, anyway.

Brockport middle and high school students spent much of last week devising peace plans for their schools. It was part of a safe school ambassador training program 77 students and 13 teachers attended to help make their schools better and safer places to be.

"Being an ambassador sometimes isn't easy," workshop presenter Chris Pack told the 33 high schoolers and seven teachers attending on Thursday. "You start small, you take these little steps, depending on your comfort."

Pack is a trainer from the organization "Community Matters." The nonprofit group provides bystanders with skills they can use to prevent or stop a potentially hurtful situation.

Ambassadors are people in the middle and high schools who will use the skills they learned at the program to help curb bullying and harassment in their schools.

Some of the small steps students were encouraged to try were to notice acts of violence or cruelty in their schools and to think about whether it's safe for them to become involved in a given situation. They also learned intervention techniques if they do witness harassment or bullying, and to follow up with a victim of harassment or bullying. Ambassadors are trained to notice, think, act, and follow through.

"The idea of the program is to change the culture of the campus," Pack said. "So that the most influential students have skills they can use with their peers to prevent and stop the mistreatment they see around them, so they are saying and showing that it's not cool to be cruel."

Types of violence students learned to be watchful of included deliberate exclusion, verbal abuse, teasing, bullying, intimidation, physical violence, and threats against their campus.

A common skit students played out to try and practice their interventions included scenarios beginning with derogatory remarks, and how to offset a hurtful situation.

"It took countless people murdered to get us here today," student Ariel Raskin said.

Bullying in schools became a focal point of the nation, highlighted by occurrences like the violence in Columbine and Jonesboro. A number of students who attended the schools, both setting for horrific school massacres, were criticized for remaining silent amidst rumors of danger or threats at their respective campuses.

"It's just like September 11," student Karen Wolak said. "It took this attack for us to realize we're not as great and powerful as we thought."

The training program was prompted by the need to raise awareness about bullying and other forms of cruelty in schools, officials said. Teachers in the district felt the best way to respond to a potentially dangerous situation is to include students in the solution, and to receive training - like the safe schools ambassador program - to address these problems.

"Safe schools must be built from the inside out," read Pack's handout to attendees.