School district working to combat bullying

Bullying is, unfortunately, a common occurrence in many schools across the country. With modern technology, it is not limited to the schools any more, either. Bullying can come in many forms, from unkind words, to physical violence, to ostracism, to harassment via social media. While many people may want to pretend that bullying is not a serious issue, or that it does not even happen in their local school district, it happens everywhere.

Even in Wrangell, there are instances of bullying. District Superintendent Debbe Lancaster said that she and school staff are working hard to end bullying, though.

Lancaster said that bullying was present in the school district, but that it was not prevalent. She could not give specific examples due to student privacy concerns, but she said that over the course of the school year, there was only one report of bullying at the secondary schools. She added that there were a handful of instances of students needing help with some conflict resolution, but that these cases did not amount to bullying.

"If bullying is taking place, it's not been brought to the attention of the administration," Lancaster said.

She went into a little detail about the differences between bullying and "conflict resolution deficits." Teenagers do not always have the social skills in place to handle a disagreement in a healthy way, she said. While the term "bullying" can be loosely applied to the situation, she said, there is a difference. Bullying is different in that it is repetitive, she said, and plays off of a power imbalance.

While bullying is not prevalent in Wrangell, the district still takes it seriously. Several programs have been put in place to help staff and fellow students combat bullying if and when it occurs. This year, she said, staff took crisis prevention training to help them better understand how to de-escalate situations. Staff will also be undergoing ACEs training in April, to better understand how adverse childhood experiences can alter brain functions and behaviors in students. Starting next year, she added that the district will be trying to teach assertiveness to staff and students.

It is not healthy to avoid conflict, Lancaster said, people need to step up and confront the issue if they are feeling bullied. At the elementary school level, Lancaster said that they are trying a system of positive reinforcement. Teachers and staff will praise and reward students for having positive interactions with each other, and put less emphasis on punishing students for negative interactions.

"When a student is bullying, they're doing that because they have an unresolved issue, or they've got anger that they can't manage, so that's a release for them," Lancaster said. "The person that's being bullied develops their own set of coping skills, and avoidance of interaction starts to happen. Well, as a school district, we need to be aware of these things going on."

If any student does feel that they are being bullied they should try to resolve the conflict themselves in a responsible way, Lancaster said. If the bullying continues, they should inform an adult. Be it a parent or teacher, it is important to speak up, she said, as the district cannot act unless they know what is going on. It is then the responsibility of that adult to take the information to the school's building administrator, who will then investigate the issue and determine the next course of action. Families of the bully and the victim will both be informed of what is going on after the preliminary investigation is complete, she said. One of the biggest ways bullying can be stopped is adults following the school district's core values of respect, honesty, integrity, courage, confidence, and kindness. Children learn from what they see, Lancaster said, and not what they hear. If they listen to adults talking about the school's core values all the time, but do not see any adults practicing those values, they will see them as pointless. It is all about setting a good example, in other words.

"What are the kids going to learn? They're going to learn there's a disconnect between what they're supposed to be doing and what they're actually seeing adults act like. It's important to this administration that we always model the behavior we want to see in children," she said.