Commentary; Posted: 5/21/03

Caring cultures of schools as important as policies

Don Heinzman

When the Columbine High School massacre happened four years ago in Colorado, public schools sprang into action to prevent future bullying of students, because the shooters in that tragedy had been taunted by fellow students.

Now, most schools have policies to keep students safe at school. One way to guarantee their safety is to crack down on students who bully other students.

Despite all good intentions, Jeremy Secord, 15, of Coon Rapids. took his life, partly because his life was threatened by two out-side students. Jeremy was popular in school, but according to his mother, authorities there didnít act quickly enough on his fears from bulliers.

She unsuccessfully appealed for an investigation through the school district and the Minnesota Department of Children Families and Learning.

Even though Anoka Hennepin School District has a sexual/racial/religious, harassment/violence student policy, it apparently is not specific enough either to raise the awareness of bullying or to mete out punishment to the mean spirited students.

A school board member, Jerry Newton, has revised the policy to make it more targeted.

Meanwhile, Jeremyís mother, Janelle, and her colleague, Tracy Sigfrid, who has withdrawn her daughter from what she believes is an unsafe school system, are making sure this matter does not go away.

This is a problem that all school district officials need to address. They need to do more than just teach kids how to respect one another.

What they need most to do is care about troubled students, as difficult as that is. The problem of kids singling out the vulnerable and taunting them seems to peak in the middle schools. It therefore makes sense to make elementary school students aware of the problem, and how to cope with it.

Sigfrid has joined the school safety committee which has student bullying on its agenda.

Doug Hodson, chair of the committee, says bullying is treated the same way as any form of harassment in the Anoka-Hennepin school district. He defines it as pure and simple intimidationóphysical, mental or emotional.

Sigfrid says 98 percent of the bullying and abuse problems in the schools by kids are because of their ìloserî parents.

She is offering a plan to the district, first to establish volunteer based support groups in the schools for the 2003-2004 school year. To make people more aware, she would have posters and other visuals around the school, monthly speakers would share their personal experience of abuse and bullying, and a bully-peer protection program would be started.

Sigfrid also wants to establish a committee of students and advisers for support groups and have a district-wide help line for parents. She would establish a foundation for help in funding the support groups.

She proposes a math tutorial program and an expanded mentorship/empowerment program at Coon Rapids Alternative School.

She and Jeremyís mother are determined to keep his spirit alive by telling his story and to help the children in this school district so they are unafraid in school.

Other school districts would be wise to examine not just their policies but the caring culture in their schools among students, staff and parents to prevent needless suffering and even suicides.

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