Even bullies go back to school

The new school year is approaching, and I know I'm not alone in my concerns about harassment and bullying in schools. It is an epidemic problem throughout the United States, and our school district is no exception. During the last school year I had numerous conversations with parents of children in all grade levels, but the problem seems to be "out of control" in our middle school. My child endured harassment and bullying throughout most of the middle school years.

As a resident of Oak Park I know that the district has a policy of no tolerance for this type of behavior, yet it is not being enforced, and students have minimal education about this problem. Some teachers at our middle school have informed me that we have administrators that are not even acknowledging the problem, and many teachers feel it is a crisis situation.

Discipline is being done in individual cases when administration is informed, but most of the time students are afraid to come forward with the problem, and they suffer in silence. Sometimes, no matter how hard a child may try to solve the problem on their own, they may need help, yet they have a fear to come forward thinking the situation may just get worse for them.

For the most part, unless physical abuse is taking place, the school seems to turn a blind eye to the existence of the problem. Not only is it important to address these issues at home on a continuing basis, but we as parents must demand that our schools educate our children that bullying and harassment of any kind is unacceptable.

Assemblies, reminders on the public address system, peer discussions, etc., are all good ways to keep the kids aware. We should make sure that yard duty personnel are closely monitoring this problem. I encourage other parents to speak to our administrators with your ideas for addressing this problem.

We also need to demand that our school administrators admit the severity of the problem and be willing to take action. A task force should be formed to help implement ways to address harassment and bullying. School districts throughout the United States, including Southern California, have adopted programs that address this issue and through education have had success in decreasing the problem on their campuses.

We need a program for our schools. Oak Park is not immune from this disease. Teri Jean Oak Park