What should schools do to prevent bullying?

[UxKa]

Bring back nuns and switches.

[Uncle Mxy]

^ But like Mxy and me were discussing...if the schools are going to start having to pay settlements for letting the bullies continue to bully, then maybe they should stop the bullies from bullying before they get their asses sued.

edit...Mxy disagreed, but just sayin.

Actually, I half-agreed with you. Sure, schools can chase down bullies, but:

1) If they're getting dicked financially because of stupid bullying lawsuits, they have bigger problems than bullying. Bullying in schools is not some nationwide crisis AFAICT. Schools losing money due to unfunded mandates and stupid laws are, and this just adds more fuel to the fire.

2) Schools really should only be in the "stop bullying" business if they're given a funded and supported mandate to do so, and I see little evidence of that. As things stand currently, the "serious" bullies -- the sluggers, the thieves, the online fuckheads -- need to be punted to the cops, not handled inhouse.

[Glenn]

*disclaimer, my wife has 2 PHDs and works in public schools.

She's just one level above lunchlady.

[Hermy]

Shit, she wishes she was better than me.

[Timone]

"consensual fisticuffs"

[geerussell]

I'm glad they didn't think of hiring wardens for recess when I was in school.

Broadway Elementary brought in Ms. Parker in January out of exasperation with students who, left to their own devices, used to run into one another, squabble over balls and jump-ropes or monopolize the blacktop while exiling their classmates to the sidelines. Since she started, disciplinary referrals at recess have dropped by three-quarters, to an average of three a week. And injuries are no longer a daily occurrence.

“Before, I was seeing nosebleeds, busted lips, and students being a danger to themselves and others,” said Alejandro Echevarria, the principal. “Now, Coach Brandi does miracles with 20 cones and three handballs.”

The school is one of a growing number across the country that are reining in recess to curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns over obesity. They also hope to show children that there is good old-fashioned fun to be had without iPods and video games.

Playworks, a California-based nonprofit organization that hired Ms. Parker to run the recess program at Broadway Elementary, began a major expansion in 2008 with an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It has placed recess coaches in 170 schools in low-income areas of nine cities, including Boston, Washington and Los Angeles, and of Silicon Valley.

[geerussell]

9 Teenagers Accused of Bullying That Led to Suicide

It is not clear what some students at South Hadley High School expected to achieve by subjecting a freshman to the relentless taunting described by a prosecutor and classmates.

Certainly not her suicide. And certainly not the multiple felony indictments announced on Monday against several students at the Massachusetts school.

The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.

The charges were an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which is increasingly conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has drawn growing concern from parents, educators and lawmakers.

In the uproar around the suicides of Ms. Prince, 15, and an 11-year-old boy subjected to harassment in nearby Springfield last year, the Massachusetts legislature stepped up work on an anti-bullying law that is now near passage. The law would require school staff members to report suspected incidents and principals to investigate them. It would also demand that schools teach about the dangers of bullying. Forty-one other states have anti-bullying laws of varying strength.

[Uncle Mxy]

Here's a couple quotes taken out of their context from your article because I want to make a different point than the person bringing up the charges against the schools:

"sent her threatening text messages, day after day"
"Some of the students plotted against Ms. Prince on the Internet, using social networking sites"

Bullying isn't just about what happens at school. Schools aren't legally or technically equipped to subpoena texting records, engage Facebook, deal with the predictable 1st Amendment issues, etc. At the time it was reported a couple months ago, the school specified that the abuse mostly was cyberbullying:

http://www.boston.com/news/education...k_at_bullying/

and a bunch of follow-on articles suggest that's where the police's efforts were obviously focused (which is distinct from where they might have been less-obviously focused). And consider this bit:

"threw a canned drink at her as she walked home"

This reportedly happened outside of school grounds. There's only so much a school can be expected to do beyond school grounds. Dunno about Massachusetts, but in Michigan, the crossing guards for kids walking to/from school are funded, vetted, and trained by the police, not the schools.

I really don't want to see schools on the hook for activity that happens beyond school grounds. I really don't want to see untrained, undeputized schools have all the same powers that the police does for students and other individuals while on school grounds. Don't turn schools administrators into kiddie cops. Nothing about this tragic death does anything but reinforce this.

As an aside, I think I'd have been in love if an attractive girl with an honest-to-blarney Irish accent and background were in my freshman high school class. Sad, just sad.