Bullying: is it happening in our schools?

Enough is enough.
That is what a handful of students at SAD 29 are saying to bullying.
Mikayla Fitzpatrick, along with four other female students, has started a group called FAB (Families Against Bullying) at Houlton Senior and Junior High School.
    The reason behind the name FAB is that it is just not students, but for families to get behind stopping the bullying. The group’s motto is “To the world you may be one person, to one person you may be the world.”
“We are very excited to have our students taking the initiative to start this program,” said Houlton Principal Marty Bouchard. “This type of leadership amongst students is so powerful when it comes to prevention. Our administration has made it one of our goals to focus more on bullying to ensure all students feel safe and comfortable at school.”
Fitzpatrick had watched a segment of “48 Hours” about bullying and she was shocked by the minor action that can bring on ridicule.
“A girl came into school late one day and all the kids told her they wished she was dead,” Fitzpatrick said of the TV show. “I don’t know why they would say that. There was no reason to.”
These five seventh-graders notice that bullying is all around them and they want it out of their school.
“One of my really close friends was bullied last year,” Fitzpatrick said. “I saw it the other day when one of the students pushed another up into the locker. And, this is just junior high.”
By the time a bully reaches high school, it isn’t just pushing the books from another’s arms or calling names, it becomes more personal and intrusive, leaving deeper scars. One former Hodgdon student is going public with her story when she ended up on the “outside.”
“It started last year,” said Emily Transue. “I was friends with a lot of people and I felt like I had a really solid group of friends. Then, sophomore year rolled around and I started to lose people. It felt like they were pulling out of my life and I wasn’t really sure why.”
Transue probably could have handled friends stepping away, but not what she endured the next few months. A friend of Transue’s took 50 pages of messages from her Facebook account and turned them on her.
“She hacked my Facebook and saved the messages [that I thought were private] to a document and was pressured to show others the messages.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, Transue began receiving threatening messages on Facebook, through text and harassing phone calls.
“I would get calls from people I didn’t know calling me [names] and telling me I should kill myself,” she said.
“It was drastic and it got really hurtful,” she said. “There were days I didn’t want to go to school because I knew I would have to see all these kids who hated me for no reason. I kind of let it roll off my shoulders. Even though I still went to school every day, walked past them holding my head high, inside I was dying. I felt awful all the time. I wasn’t sleeping or eating. I was internalizing all of it. I didn’t know what to do with that.”
Three months before school finished, Transue finally quit and walked away.
“People would glare at me,” she said. “I sat alone at lunch. People hated me and it was awful. Just the way that kids could treat each other is astounding to me and it was really hard to deal with.”
Transue broke down and finally told her mother what was happening.
“It was hard for me to tell her because I knew she wouldn’t be OK with it,” she said. “I know a lot of kids have experienced the same stuff and they’ve gone to way more drastic measures. I just want to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone else. It is so sad.”
The young junior high girl’s eyes were deep in thought.
“Why would they do that?” Fitzpatrick asked.
It is interesting that the word bully was first used in the 1530s meaning “sweetheart” from the Dutch derivative “boel.” Bullying by definition today is behavior which may include name calling, verbal or written abuse, exclusion from activities, exclusion from social situations, physical abuse or coercion, according to Merriam Webster dictionary.
What happened eventually was that the incident Transue was involved in escalated to a point where kids were getting others to dislike her.
“By the time I left school, probably 90 percent of the school didn’t want me there,” she said.
On a website called Tumblr, a student posted a blog bashing Transue.
“I found it and showed my guidance counselor,” she explained. “It was done on a school laptop.”
The people who started the whole affair were called into the principal’s office.
“The only one who had to apologize to me was the one who actually hacked my Facebook,” Transue said. “She gave me the most sincere apology out of the two I got. Before any of that, she had given me a face-to-face apology with the guidance counselor in the room,” explained Transue. “She said she didn’t actually mean for this all to happen. I know she didn’t, but it went too far.”
Fitzpatrick was stunned.
“I’ve heard of cyber bullying, but I didn’t think that someone could hack anyone’s account so they could print out something and go against them,” she said.
Should society blame the Internet and social networks for the rise of bullying?
“The technology we have access to … I hate it,” said Transue. “I hate that part of my generation. I am glad we are making advances, but … it is so anonymous … you can be anyone you want to be online.”
School bullying and cyber bullying are two issues facing young people today and more focus is being spent on them.
“There are a few posters around school,” said Fitzpatrick and many administrative workshops have addressed the “no tolerance” policy.
Houlton Police Officer Steve Nason said the police don’t get a lot of reports on bullying. School systems tend to handle the situation inhouse.
“There is no specific law in the state of Maine against bullying,” he said. “But, there is a specific law against harassment. And [bullying] can be considered harassment.”
The police department deals with more adults on being harassed online than they do juveniles.
“We encourage people to save the evidence,” he said.
Though Nason doesn’t believe bullying handled within the school system takes care of the infraction, bullying falls under harassment which is a Class E crime punishable by jail time and/or a fine.
“I almost wish they [lawmakers] would make schools more proactive and make them report it to the police,” he said. “A lot of times, parents are the ones that call. School [officials] rarely call. It is usually  parents who come in and that doesn’t happen a great deal.”
How to stop the bullying is almost like asking the question, can you see the wind blow?
“It’s hard to think of ideas, but you just have to make people aware,” Transue said to Fitzpatrick.
“I never thought I would have to start a group like this,” Fitzpatrick said. “Watching that show made me think that if I do, maybe it wouldn’t happen as much.”
Bystanders have found standing up for someone else tends to make them a target for the bullies, as well.
“They make fun of you for standing up for the person they are bullying,” Fitzpatrick added.
When asked how willing she is to stand in the gap, Fitzpatrick didn’t hesitate.
“Very willing,” she said.
“You can watch it on the news and say ‘That’s sad,’ but unless you know someone this has happened to it’s not going to hit home because it is not applicable to your life,” said Transue. “Until you have felt how badly it feels to be an outcast, it’s a hard thing to explain to people.”
Fitzpatrick and Transue both still use the Internet, but Transue has blocked anyone who was involved with the incident and changes her passwords often.
“I put as many precautions I can in place,” Transue said.
The FAB group is looking for new members. The group meets regularly and is working on several ideas to bring awareness to the issue, along with starting a support group for those who have felt the effect of bullying.
“We will hang more posters up at school and make ribbons like Breast Cancer, except they will be teal ribbons because teal is the color for antibullying,” Fitzpatrick said. “We also want to raise money for a guest speaker.”
For those who are being bullied or know someone who is being bullied, tell someone.
“Don’t brush it off,” said Transue.