Youth violence: When Parents Encourage Fighting

Has your student/child ever told you they were being bullied? How did you advise him/her to handle the situation? In Halethorpe, MD, one mother decided to encourage her son to fight his bully. Kelly White, mother of a middle school student, said she was scared for her son’s life if he didn’t stand up for himself. When White’s son told her the week before that he was being bullied, she decided she wanted to teach her son a lesson in standing up for himself, so she encouraged him to get mad and fight his bully. According to WJZ.com, while White felt she was protecting her child, she is now facing multiple charges including second-degree child abuse and second-degree assault.

Instead of fighting back when bullied, parents and students can use PSW’s Student Bullying Reporting System. It provides 24/7 online and telephone systems with built-in communication tools that immediately notify school administrators when an issue is reported. How often do your students/parents report bullying? Do you have a way to track bullying issues in order to address them before the situation gets out of hand? How do you prepare parents and students to deal with bullying? Share your answers to these questions by joining the discussion on our Facebook page.

Source: CBS Local News Online

Safety Thought: When Bullies Grow Up

What happens when school-yard bullies are allowed to bully, then grow up to continue hurting others emotionally, mentally or physically? In Oklahoma, two men and two women attacked Stetson Johnson, an 18 year-old boy with learning disabilities, after he allegedly tried to have sex with one of the women. The group of four tattooed ‘RAPEST’ on his forehead, yelled obscenities at him, shocked him with a stun gun, then took him to a field and beat him unconscious with a baseball bat. The group is being held without bail with recommended charges of assault and battery, maiming by disfigurement and kidnapping. According to a police report, police seized tattoo guns, needles, ink and a Taser gun after the suspects were taken into custody. Johnson, who has the mentality of a fifth-grader, now has scars from the attack, trouble breathing, trouble seeing out of one eye and suffers from anxiety.

What could have schools done to teach these young adults about compassion and respect for others? What is your school or district doing to teach students bullying is not okay? Share your stories with us on Twitter @PSWORKS.


Source: MSNBC Online

StudentWatch: Spotlight on Student Safety

Violence and bullying in schools knows no age limits. Recently, a 10-year-old boy from Lakewood, CO was arrested after bringing his BB gun to Stein Elementary School and firing at six of his classmates. According to the Huffington Post, the fourth grader snuck his BB gun into the school and brought it out in class when his teacher looked away. He was arrested and booked on municipal assault and dangerous missile charges. The 10-year-old will also face automatic expulsion for bringing the gun to school. This is the second school shooting this year in Jefferson County. In February, a student shot and wounded two eighth-graders at Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, CO.

Keeping students safe from acts of rage is not always easy, but being prepared for these random incidents is important.


Source: HUFFPOST Denver

Youth violence: When your child is the bully

Protecting a child from bullies can be a parent’s nightmare. Knowing a child is going to a school where he or she is verbally or physically abused is hard to think about, but what happens when your child is the school-yard bully? According to WKTV.com, the one red flag with bullies is that they are likely suffering themselves and are often being bullied by others. If your child's accused of being the bully, it is more important to address the situation than to focus on who is to blame. Parents should work with their children to help them understand what bullying is and how it feels to be on the receiving end of bullying to develop a sense of what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes.

PublicSchoolWORKS’ Student Bullying Reporting System provides 24/7 online and telephone systems for students and parents to report bullying incidents, with built-in communication tools that immediately notify school administrators. Has your child been caught bullying at school? How did you address the issue?

Source: WKTV Online

StudentWatch: Spotlight on Student Safety

Working with students in science labs can present safety issues and anxiety. Teachers are hopeful that all students and staff will take their safety and the safety of others seriously when conducting experiments and tests. A recent lab-related tragedy brings this to light - One student at Yale University in New Haven, CT who was known for taking proper safety precautions, was recently killed in a tragic accident when her long hair got caught in lab equipment. The student, Michele Dufault, who was majoring in astronomy and physics, was working alone after hours on her senior thesis when she was killed.

According to the New York Times, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is investigating the incident and Yale University is reviewing their “safety policies and practices of laboratories, machine shops and other facilities with power equipment.” As a cautious student, Dufault had passed the University’s introductory to shop course, allowing her access to the lab, was enrolled in an advanced course on machine shop protocols and co-authored a 60-page document of safeguards for the NASA reduced-gravity experiment she assisted with last summer. Even with all of this knowledge, tragic accidents can still happen. Other schools can learn from this event and require students using potentially dangerous equipment to work in pairs, or follow other safety precautions.

Another tool schools can use to help prevent student accidents is PSW’s Student Accident Reporting & Management System. This system automates the management, notification, tracking and documentation of required accident management initiatives to reduce accidents and claims, while improving student play areas and building safety. Schools can use the system to track accident trends and provide retraining or change rules to make areas safer for students.

Source: The New York Times Online