Anti-bullying at my Alma Mater

Over the past week, a post on facebook made its way around from a 15 year old student attending my Alma mater, Alma High school. In the post, this student expressed how frustrated she is by how intense and constant the bullying has become within the walls of this school.

She talked about the lack of response from the teachers and administration of the school. She talked about how much they brushed off complaints of being bullied as being too sensitive.

Her post has led to a number of other posts, some of which I've linked
  Here , Over here and these below.

 

 These are from other students, parents of students and I've even seen this post from a teacher at the high school, using the hashtag #ripcommonsense with a picture of the anti-bullying protest seen outside of his classroom by the road.

Now, I've read all of these posts that have been shared by others in my feed. This article from ABC 12 mentions that 11 students have been removed from the school by their parents due to being bullied.

Yet, despite the fact that 11 students have been pulled because their parents were tired of the school not stepping in to stop their child being bullied, many of these posts I've seen are actually condemning the peaceful anti-bully protest & anti-bullying social media posts.

There are actually people who have the audacity to say, 'Well, these kids are just too sensitive, they need to toughen up' or 'It's not bullying if it's just an off-color joke.'

I've sat here for some time tonight/this morning reading and rereading these posts and feeling anger welling inside my chest. I knew I was going to post on this subject but I needed to try to figure out what I wanted to say without ranting or losing my composure.

This issue feels personal for me because 14 years ago, I graduated from Alma High School...and for the 4 years I was there, I was bullied constantly.

Now, I know that the administration of my time there is not the same administration that currently runs the school.

Having said that, 11 students being pulled from school due to bullying speaks volumes to how an already awful school system has managed to become even worse.

That bothers me enough because I know how inconvenient the heads of Alma High school seemed to view accusations of assault, bullying and the like during my years. Now, in a world where bullying doesn't end at home because social media and cell phones make harassment a few clicks away, even then, this school hasn't managed to step up to deal with this increasing problem.

Yet, there are still people who think it's okay to insist that these kids, KIDS, are too sensitive, too thin-skinned, not tough enough.

Let me tell you, friends and family, what it's like being a harassed & bullied kid at Alma High school. These are stories I have rarely spoken about, including some my family hasn't even heard about previously.

1. My freshman year, I had a classmate who had a locker only a few down from mine. This guy thought it was okay and even funny when I bent to get into my locker every day to come up behind me and either slap my ass, grind on my ass or yell loud comments about my ass for the entire hallway to hear.

I tried repeatedly to handle this situation myself because I didn't want to feel like I couldn't fight my own battles (as all of these seemingly pro-bully folks say).

I tried asking him to leave me alone. I tried getting in his face.
I tried coming to a teacher who looked around briefly for the other kid and then said he hadn't seen anything and couldn't do anything if he didn't see it.
I went to the Assistant Principal who told me that the teachers are usually in the hall and one of them would have to see something happen and not just "take my word." I asked them to have one of the hall monitors at least come up that hallway while I was getting in my locker ANY morning during the week then. Not once in the next week did any of them show up in that section of hallway.
It wasn't until I swung around one day and punched him in the face that the situation stopped. Even then, I think that only happened because miraculously, a hall monitor showed up when I punched him, intervened and after I told her what had been happening, made it clear that we weren't to interact anymore.

He wasn't punished and I was left feeling like I'd been equally responsible for something that happened TO ME.

2. The same hallway by the same lockers the same year: coming back from lunch, we weren't supposed to wander the hallways at the opposite end of the school from the cafeteria because the kids on the other lunch hour might be in class.

I was one of a group that cut across the courtyard to get to where our lockers were before our next class. That was where we waited for the bell that marked the end of lunch and released sitting classes to ring and we could be let go by the hall monitor blocking us from going any further down the hallway.

Another male student from my own class took great joy in tormenting me. He stood in front of that crowd, LESS THAN A FOOT from the hall monitor, screaming lies about me so everyone would hear. He decided to tell everyone that I had been pregnant (I wasn't), that I had slept with 8 of my classmates (I was a virgin) and proceeded to list them. Several of these boys were nearby. Some laughed and grinned as it was just some bragging point for them. Others made loud protests about how I was too ugly to sleep with.

I stood trying to pretend I wasn't humiliated and tried to scream back. The hall monitor did and said absolutely nothing. She just rolled her eyes even as the bell rang and I, starting to sob, ran off to the bathroom to fall apart.

I told the teacher of my next class, who promised to discuss it with the principal. The next day, she couldn't look me in the eye my entire class. I waited until the end to that class to ask her if she had talked to the principal. She could barely get out that it was passed on to her that it was just best to keep us separated so we didn't "bicker with each other." This kid played Football and the following semester, I was switched from one science class to another so I wouldn't be in class with him anymore. I was switched, not him, nor was he reprimanded. I WAS switched. Again, I was the one treated like I was in the wrong.

3. This story, I was in 9th grade still. I'm upstairs in my science class (1st semester) and was having a hard day. The same kid had once again started the 'Angela sleeps with everyone' rumors. According to this kid, over the first 3 years we were in school, I had a abortion 17 times but I was pregnant 3 times. (Clearly, math wasn't his forte).

I stepped out to use the bathroom, the only place I let myself cry at school, and ended up finding something worse. You know the mock elections that get put into yearbooks for the senior class every year? 'Best smile' and 'Most likely to succeed.' On the mirrors in the bathroom, and on random spots on the walls in various hallways I saw later, were printer fliers with various, cruel and terrible ones. "Fattest person in school" "Ugliest person in school" -  Under the latter was my name.

I stayed in that bathroom for the rest of class. When class let out, I slipped in, grabbed my bag and walked out of school and walked home. No one would know I skipped because I'd get home by the time the bus got there and I could walk in, so that's what I did.

That was the first time in my life that I seriously considered ending it because I couldn't handle how I felt so hated by people who didn't know me. I didn't know what I did wrong to be treated so cruelly.

This is just 3 instances in ONE YEAR as a high school freshman from 99-00. Bullying of this intensity continued throughout my high school years.

My graduation was 14 years ago. That day was a celebration for me because it meant never having to walk the halls that I was so tormented in ever again.

A lot has changed in 14 years.

Kids now are not just bullied by the people in their classes all day during school hours. They're bullied on facebook. They're bullied via text messages. Some are even bullied by the parents of their tormentors in retaliation for turning THEIR child in.

Take a moment and think about the memories I shared with you and how emotionally crippling those and the other things I haven't shared must have been. Think about how deeply scarred I felt.

Now take that feeling and imagine not even escaping it at home. Imagine it magnified times ten and having no relief from it because the internet still exists after school and over the weekend. Text messages still get sent after school and over the weekend. Bullies can still harass you after school and over the weekend.

It's time to stop invalidating these kids feelings and what they are going through because you think that calling them whores and sluts is just an "off color joke taken too seriously."

It's time to stop shrugging off bullying and hazing with "boys will be boys" and "it's all in good fun."

In another school in this country, a boy was sodomized in his high school locker room and before the parents got involved, it was "just boys rough-housing."

Children as young as 10 years old are ending their lives because at that age, every single thing you experience is in a set time you can't escape from. You're in school with the same people for 13 years, typically and unless you're down to that last handful of months or weeks, you feel hopeless.

The most important part of all of this is that it is the responsibility of the school, its administration, its teachers and its other staff to provide a SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT for these kids.

Yes, it's important for parents to teach their kids not to bully and to hold their child accountable for their actions if they DO bully another kid. However, if the school doesn't get involved, mediate between students and bring in the parents when necessary, how are these kids supposed to feel safe at all?

I know what kind of school Alma was when I left. Clearly, it has only devolved. It's time for them to do better and to be held accountable.

It's time to stop making excuses and victim blaming these kids.

Alma High School needs to do better.