Warsaw Teens Want Schools To Do More About Bullying
October 29, 2019 at 11:29 p.m.
Warsaw Teens Want Schools To Do More About Bullying
By Amanda [email protected]
Troy Akers, building principal at Warsaw Community High School, said school officials are trained to first define bullying. Bullying, Akers said, is behavior that is purposeful, intentional and continued or repeated. Those behaviors can range from physical threats, “I’m gonna hurt you,” to verbal threats, “taunting,” and both thrive off of an imbalance of power, Akers said.
“Not just that I’m bigger, but could be social power, smarter power, I have more money than you, I have more friends,” he said.
Akers said the school wasn’t doing anything during October to raise awareness or prevent bullying, but that they do provide social-emotional enrichment twice a month that Akers called a “thorough and deep informational program.”
When asked about the bullying in his building’s hallways, Akers said it varies from grade level to grade level, but that it’s not that bad.
“You would see more verbal bullying in grades nine and 10,” he said, saying middle school behaviors tend to carry over to the freshmen and sophomore classes.
“Now, I’m not going to tell you that we don’t have fights,” Akers said, adding that no serious incidents as such have occurred.
The consequences for bullies, Akers said, typically starts with mediation, meaning school officials would get the people involved together to try to “talk and work it out.” If that doesn’t work, in-school detention, followed by out-of-school suspension would be the next steps. Akers was unable to provide any numbers or specific information on how often, if at all, that those consequences happen.
WCHS senior Caitlyn Radowski said she’s been bullied her entire four years and that it’s something that happens frequently in the halls.
“People will bully people for their sexuality or their weight, and some people will make fun of the special needs kids and call them the ‘R’ word,” she said.
“When I told the school, the school said, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ but I still get bullied,” she said. “My mom tells me to ignore it, but sometimes I can’t because they call me a d*** or a f** and I tell them to shut up. It makes you not want to come to school.”
Dakota Betts is 12 years old and a seventh-grader at Edgewood Middle School.
She said the halls of Edgewood are filled with people who mostly “make fun of people for the way they look or talk.”
“Somebody kept saying I look like a boy, called me stupid, said all these mean things to me and cussed at me,” Betts said. “It made me doubt myself, but when I went home and told my parents, they told me it’s not true, don’t believe it, and then they told the principal.”
Betts said the action taken by the school was that the boy “got talked to and was told he can’t talk to me anymore.” She said the problem stopped after that.
She said she hasn’t been given any type of anti-bullying information at school and she thinks it’s a problem.
“I think that some of the kids who bully get bullied themselves,” she said.
“One kid moved to school and people called him fat and would run away from him,” she said of when she was a fifth-grader. “Nobody sits with him on the bus, and it still goes on. I think the teachers see it and they just don’t do anything. I think they think there’s too many people to get in trouble and if they did something the office would be too full of people in trouble.”
For Edgewood eighth-grader Fe-ammarii Garcia, she’s experienced bullying but for different reasons.
“There’s lot of teasing, not necessarily schoolyard bullying like name-calling and pushing, but like racist and homophobic slurs. It happens a lot. People will be called s**** for Hispanics, and I’ve been called an illegal immigrant, actually just last Friday I was called that. I just brush them off, but some people take it really hard.”
Garcia said they recently went on a field trip with Lakeview Middle School and there was a person there who gets bullied a lot and that you could hear people making fun of him on the bus.
“The teachers don’t do anything. I think they just don’t care mostly,” she said.
She also said she feels students in her grade are categorized by races.
“One group of white people at lunch yelled, ‘Trump 2020’ and told students to go back to their country,” she said. “I really wish the school would do more.”
When asked by the Times-Union about bullying, Amy Sivley, principal at Lakeview Middle School, said she would have to get permission to talk about it, but she was busy and that “bullying doesn’t get reported much.”
In a prepared statement to the Times-Union, WCS said, “Warsaw Community Schools is committed to creating a safe and secure environment for student learning. Part of this commitment includes recognizing and preventing potential bullying within all WCS buildings. In order to address this concern, WCS has implemented a variety of tools and trainings to give both students and staff the tools to not only prevent bullying, but also promote emotional wellness is the face of adversity.
“In addition, WCS also employs an anonymous tip line for students who have witnessed or been subjected to bullying. Students exposed to bullying are encouraged to speak with an administrator at their building or call the anonymous hotline at 574-635-5652. Students are also able to send an email to [email protected].”
Garcia said the Speak Up app available to students doesn’t work.
“If people do that, people will just think their snitches,” she said. “If you say something about it, you’re a loser. I feel like no one actually takes charge.”
Akers acknowledged he’s been contacted by parents who said their kids were being bullied.
“We’ve got to do better where kids work together,” he said.
He also said the school “supports the person being targeted in knowing how to get help.”
“We need to build people up, not tear people down,” Akers said.
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Troy Akers, building principal at Warsaw Community High School, said school officials are trained to first define bullying. Bullying, Akers said, is behavior that is purposeful, intentional and continued or repeated. Those behaviors can range from physical threats, “I’m gonna hurt you,” to verbal threats, “taunting,” and both thrive off of an imbalance of power, Akers said.
“Not just that I’m bigger, but could be social power, smarter power, I have more money than you, I have more friends,” he said.
Akers said the school wasn’t doing anything during October to raise awareness or prevent bullying, but that they do provide social-emotional enrichment twice a month that Akers called a “thorough and deep informational program.”
When asked about the bullying in his building’s hallways, Akers said it varies from grade level to grade level, but that it’s not that bad.
“You would see more verbal bullying in grades nine and 10,” he said, saying middle school behaviors tend to carry over to the freshmen and sophomore classes.
“Now, I’m not going to tell you that we don’t have fights,” Akers said, adding that no serious incidents as such have occurred.
The consequences for bullies, Akers said, typically starts with mediation, meaning school officials would get the people involved together to try to “talk and work it out.” If that doesn’t work, in-school detention, followed by out-of-school suspension would be the next steps. Akers was unable to provide any numbers or specific information on how often, if at all, that those consequences happen.
WCHS senior Caitlyn Radowski said she’s been bullied her entire four years and that it’s something that happens frequently in the halls.
“People will bully people for their sexuality or their weight, and some people will make fun of the special needs kids and call them the ‘R’ word,” she said.
“When I told the school, the school said, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ but I still get bullied,” she said. “My mom tells me to ignore it, but sometimes I can’t because they call me a d*** or a f** and I tell them to shut up. It makes you not want to come to school.”
Dakota Betts is 12 years old and a seventh-grader at Edgewood Middle School.
She said the halls of Edgewood are filled with people who mostly “make fun of people for the way they look or talk.”
“Somebody kept saying I look like a boy, called me stupid, said all these mean things to me and cussed at me,” Betts said. “It made me doubt myself, but when I went home and told my parents, they told me it’s not true, don’t believe it, and then they told the principal.”
Betts said the action taken by the school was that the boy “got talked to and was told he can’t talk to me anymore.” She said the problem stopped after that.
She said she hasn’t been given any type of anti-bullying information at school and she thinks it’s a problem.
“I think that some of the kids who bully get bullied themselves,” she said.
“One kid moved to school and people called him fat and would run away from him,” she said of when she was a fifth-grader. “Nobody sits with him on the bus, and it still goes on. I think the teachers see it and they just don’t do anything. I think they think there’s too many people to get in trouble and if they did something the office would be too full of people in trouble.”
For Edgewood eighth-grader Fe-ammarii Garcia, she’s experienced bullying but for different reasons.
“There’s lot of teasing, not necessarily schoolyard bullying like name-calling and pushing, but like racist and homophobic slurs. It happens a lot. People will be called s**** for Hispanics, and I’ve been called an illegal immigrant, actually just last Friday I was called that. I just brush them off, but some people take it really hard.”
Garcia said they recently went on a field trip with Lakeview Middle School and there was a person there who gets bullied a lot and that you could hear people making fun of him on the bus.
“The teachers don’t do anything. I think they just don’t care mostly,” she said.
She also said she feels students in her grade are categorized by races.
“One group of white people at lunch yelled, ‘Trump 2020’ and told students to go back to their country,” she said. “I really wish the school would do more.”
When asked by the Times-Union about bullying, Amy Sivley, principal at Lakeview Middle School, said she would have to get permission to talk about it, but she was busy and that “bullying doesn’t get reported much.”
In a prepared statement to the Times-Union, WCS said, “Warsaw Community Schools is committed to creating a safe and secure environment for student learning. Part of this commitment includes recognizing and preventing potential bullying within all WCS buildings. In order to address this concern, WCS has implemented a variety of tools and trainings to give both students and staff the tools to not only prevent bullying, but also promote emotional wellness is the face of adversity.
“In addition, WCS also employs an anonymous tip line for students who have witnessed or been subjected to bullying. Students exposed to bullying are encouraged to speak with an administrator at their building or call the anonymous hotline at 574-635-5652. Students are also able to send an email to [email protected].”
Garcia said the Speak Up app available to students doesn’t work.
“If people do that, people will just think their snitches,” she said. “If you say something about it, you’re a loser. I feel like no one actually takes charge.”
Akers acknowledged he’s been contacted by parents who said their kids were being bullied.
“We’ve got to do better where kids work together,” he said.
He also said the school “supports the person being targeted in knowing how to get help.”
“We need to build people up, not tear people down,” Akers said.
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