Plainfield Fifth Grader Trying to Make School a Bully-Free Zone

Submitted by Plainfield School District 202

Photo: Walker’s Grove fifth-grader Luke Brown watches as first graders sign his Anti-Bully Zone pledge poster on Thursday Feb. 4. Brown, 11, is speaking to all kindergarten through fifth-grade students to encourage them to avoid bullying and to sign his anti-bullying pledge. Brown started speaking to his classmates in January after learning that each day hundreds of thousands of kids across the nation skip school because they are afraid of bullies.

PLAINFIELD, IL — One Walker’s Grove Elementary School fifth grader is trying to stop bullying one classroom at a time.

Luke Brown is visiting classrooms at Walker’s Grove to speak against bullying and ask students to sign an anti-bully pledge.

The 11-year-old started his campaign in January after learning that every day hundreds of thousands of students across the nation don’t go to school for fear of being bullied.

Brown came home and told his parents, Melanie and Adam, that he and his friends were going to be kind to all their classmates.

But Brown wanted to do something to make the entire school a bully-free zone.

“We looked at each other and thought that’s kind of special,” his mother said about Luke’s campaign.

Brown created anti-bullying speeches asking all kindergarten through fifth-grade students to be kind, fair, friendly, nice and considerate to everyone.

After speaking, he asks students to sign an Anti-Bully Zone poster-sized pledge. Brown said some of the students who signed the pledge have bullied his friends.

So far, all students have signed the posters.

Brown’s anti-bullying campaign reinforces the school’s focus on character, said Walker’s Grove Principal Jeffery Schafermeyer.

“It has been inspiring to watch other students respond to Luke’s enthusiasm for this topic,” he said.

The pledge posters will be hung around school to remind students of their anti-bullying pledge.