Lupin Hill Elementary Kicks Off Anti-Bullying Program

Lupin Hill Elementary School celebrated National Bully Prevention Month on Wednesday with a school-wide assembly introducing the adoption of the Olweus Bully Prevention Program.

Aiming to end school violence everywhere, the international program’s methods were presented to the school by Principal Sheila Grady, teachers and a small group of students, some of whom held signs while others read aloud the program's four anti-bullying rules.

As Grady explained to the crowd, the effort to end bullying at school extends beyond the campus.

“Everyone is willing to help prevent bullying, not only at our school but also everywhere in Calabasas,” she said.

As part of the program, students were instructed to design their own posters, with four or five from each class to be displayed at local businesses like Ralph’s, Albertson’s and Starbucks. The posters will feature four rules, such as “if we see someone getting bullied we will tell an adult at school and an adult at home.”

Each grade participated in the kick-off by dressing in a designated color, reciting chants, and sharing advice on how to avoid bullying and make people feel apart of the group. The bullying prevention program’s debut in Calabasas was well received by members of the audience.

“I think it’s a great program and we’re very fortunate to have a principal who’s making it happen at this school,” said Michele Hill, parent of a second grader and a fourth grader. “It's empowering the kids to know they can speak up to help the other ones, because I think that’s the hard part — they don’t feel comfortable saying something.”

Providing a platform for students to speak up is essential to the program, which carries a 20 to 70 percent reduction in bullying incidences, according to the Olweus Bully Prevention Program website.

“What we learned is that the bullying that’s really painful, we never hear about. ...They don’t tell the parents, the teachers, or anyone,” Grady said.

In addition to Lupin Hill, A.E. Wright Middle School and Bay Laurel Elementary are also set to adopt the program. Principals and one counselor at each of the three Calabasas schools particpated in a three-day training session last March and have worked on implementing the program since then, with Lupin Hill leading the effort.

“We never want to have just a one-shot deal for bully prevention; it has to change the whole climate of the school,” Grady said. “... We’ve trained every staff member how to interact if they suspect bullying, who do you talk to … there’s a whole procedure that we go through and it has to be the same everywhere so we started that before school started. Teachers have class meetings every week and they talk about these things.”

Wednesday’s kick-off was preceded by last week’s Parent Faculty Club meeting, which was attended by more than 40 parents. PFC President Kim Hamilton said it was the biggest parent turnout for a PFC meeting in a “very long time.”

“[Grady] did a phenomenal job in her presentation to us parents,” Hamilton said. “We did a role play, it was really great. A part of the role play was she made us step back and say, 'what if it was me?' There were eight different roles; who were we when we were growing up? So it was interesting to see which parent was what.”

The Olweus Bully Prevention Program began more than 35 years ago when it was first researched in Norway by Dan Olweus, Ph.D., though the original program wasn’t implemented in Norwegian schools until 1983, following the suicide-deaths of three teenagers who had been apparent victims of bullying.

The program has since become wide-spread in Norwegian schools and has spread to countries across the globe, including the United States, earning several awards and honors from various organizations along the way.