Cyberbullying

After having looked over these cyberbullying sites, go to your blog and respond to the following questions:
• What online resources and information did you find most useful?
• How can these resources be used in your school to address cyberbullying?
• How do you teach students and staff about cyberbullying?

     I found the "Enough is Enough" website to be an excellent source of general knowledge for educators, parents, and students.  I like how it stressed the importance of the action or inaction of bystanders.  We need to do a better job of educating our students about how bystanders can be a key component of bully prevention.  This site, as well as StopBullying.gov, did a nice job of detailing the steps that students and parents should take when they find themselves the victim of bulling.

Ask the bully to stop and tell someone else that the bullying is taking place
Copy/Print the evidence,
Block the bully,
Report the bully to the website,
Report to school officials
Get the authorities involved.

     For students, I found the FBI site to excellent.  The FBI site for safe online surfing offered an education program for students in grades 3-8.  This should/could be used as a component of our technology curriculum.  Education at an early age is key to future prevention. Integration of the FBI site into our computer classes is already a discussion item between my computer and technology staff and I.
     The NASSP and NSBA sites were full of resources for administration and School Board Members.  Sample school policies were available as well as examples of school climate surveys that can be used to gauge your schools bully prevention program.  We will be using aspects of the school climate survey to analyze the District.  To me, it seems as though there has been improvement in our number of bullying cases.  A school climate survey will hopefully confirm my assumption.
     Our current methods of educating our staff and students about cyberbullying are unorganized and inadequate.  We have had yearly programs where we bring in a guest speaker to address our students. Our beginning of the school year assembly reviewed the school bullying policies with students and staff.  We also stress to staff that they need to be visible to students and actively listening in the halls and wherever students are present.  We are a small school and sometime allow ourselves to be complacent on things of this nature.  This information should help revitalize the bully prevention education in our school.