The Menace Of Bullying: What Medfield Parents Are Saying

MEDFIELD, MA — An informal survey of Patch readers in New England shows great concern among parents about the extent and severity of bullying their children experience in school and online. Almost nine in 10 parents said their child had been bullied at least once, and nearly half said the bullying had occurred frequently.

In Medfield, 16 parents responded to the anonymous survey, with just three respondents saying their children had never been bullied. Nine of those parents said their child is "frequently" bullied, while three said their child is "occasionally" bullied. One student parent said their child was bullied once or twice. The survey is not scientific, but could be considered a broad indicator of parents' feelings about the seriousness of bullying in their schools and communities.

Medfield Public Schools has a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and allows students, parents and witnesses of bullying to report incidents on the schools' website, but some survey respondents had mixed reactions on its effectiveness.

"I feel that the district's policies are not prescriptive enough to empower the school to adequately prevent bullying or enforce anti-bullying to the extent in which it could," one parent told Patch. "I feel that there should be specific, prescriptive, punitive guidelines which state the actual repercussions to the bully based on the severity and frequency of the behavior ( ie: in school suspension, outside of school suspension, expulsion) ... I feel that the school could improve by adding these specifics into the policies."

Superintendent Jeffrey Marsden told Patch the safety and well-being of students is the district's number one priority.

"Unfortunately, there isn't a school or organization in Massachusetts that does not experience some sort of bullying behavior and Medfield is no different," Marsden told Patch. "Our work in Medfield around social-emotional learning has been very helpful with addressing these behaviors."

Marsden also said the school recently conducted the MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey, and there's components of the survey that pertain to bullying. He said the survey results showed positive trends in regards to bullying and cyberbullying. Marsden said 94 percent of students in grades 6 through 12 participated in the survey.

Parents statewide left little doubt as to the consequences of unchecked bullying, saying their children dread going to school and their grades have suffered, that they have been forced to change schools, that they have been physically harmed or suffered from low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. Some parents said they knew of bullied children who had committed suicide.

"Parents are talking about it over coffee, at the soccer field and in their neighborhoods," one Medfield parent said. "I can speak for my child in that it effects his ability to focus at school and it effects his self-esteem 24/7/"

While most parents said they were aware Medfield has adopted policies intended to curb or stop bullying, some believe those policies are poorly enforced — if they are enforced at all. Parents used terms like "ineffective," "horrible" and "lousy" to describe them.

Parents also made suggestions to curb bullying and make the policies in place more effective. Several parents suggested adding additional staff at recess, while others asked for harsher punishments for students.

"Punish the children who bully," one parent told Patch. "Don't just tell them they were wrong. Make them accountable for their actions. Sitting out recess (apparently against school district policy) and after school detention to start. Also, children who have been reported bullying by multiple children should have stronger punishments. Not the same each time. They do not stop."

Patch has undertaken extensive coverage of the bullying issue in The Menace of Bullying: A Patch Advocacy Reporting Project.

The regional parent survey, timed to coincide with National Bullying Prevention Month in October, was posted on more than 100 Patch sites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Take the Patch bullying survey

As of Tuesday, Oct. 15, more than 420 parents has responded to the Patch survey. The key findings were:

• Nearly 89 percent of parents said their children had been bullied at least once, and nearly half -- 47 percent -- said bullying had been frequent. Only 11 percent said their children had never been bullied.
• Bullying took many forms, from teasing and name-calling to exclusion from groups to physical harm such as punching or kicking. Nearly a third of respondents said their children had experienced some sort of physical harm.
• Bullying took many forms, from teasing and name-calling to exclusion from groups to physical harm such as punching or kicking. Nearly a third of respondents said their children had experienced some sort of physical harm.

These informal findings should be compared to statistics compiled in more scientific surveys, which note that:

• Bullying affects 1 in 3 U.S. schoolchildren (NoBully.org)
• 59 percent of U.S. students experience cyberbullying (Pew Research Center)
• 160,000 kids stay home from school every day to avoid bullies, National Association of School Psychologists

To comment on this story, email bullies@patch.com. And to learn more about bullying prevention, visit Patch partner NoBully.org.

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