Mean Girl Syndrome? It's Real, And Increasing, Brick School Official Says

For years, the image of school conflict was one of boys duking it out on the playground -- an image captured vividly in the movie “A Christmas Story,” where Ralphie finally decides he’s had enough and pummels the school bully.

These days, it’s the girls who are the source of an increasing number of conflicts, said Earl Mosley, the anti-bullying coordinator for the Brick Township School District.

“Ladies, you’re overtaking us,” he said, ”and we want you to stop.”

“Mean Girl syndrome, it’s a reality,” Mosley said, as he presented the district’s semiannual HIB report to the Board of Education last week. The middle schools are seeing far more incidents than the high schools, he said.

And the biggest source of it is right at their fingertips, Mosley said: the apps on their smartphones.

“Twitter, Snap Chat, Kik, Instagram -- there’s many out there,” he said, and kids don’t hesitate to use them for troublesome reasons. Parents need to be involved and paying attention to what their kids are doing with these apps, he said.

“We gave them this technology but, Lord, we didn’t give them the instruction manual,” he said.

The state’s HIB law -- Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying -- requires school districts to file reports on the number of incidents occurring in each school and districtwide, as well as what the district is doing to try to combat the problem.

Mosley said the district’s verified HIB incidents continue to fall, with just 23 verified HIB incidents in the 2014-15 school year -- down from 62 in 2012-13, the first year the law was in effect, and down from 26 in 2013-14. Verified cases are those that fall into the parameters of how the law defines bullying, he said, acknowledging that there is a disconnect between what some perceive as bullying and what the law says.

“According to the law many cases more conflicts, rather than bullying,” either because there is no perceived imbalance of power between the students involved,” he said.

But there are conflicts that arise between students that don’t rise to the level of bullying, Mosley said -- and that’s in issue the district is continuing to address, he said.

And it’s social media where a lot of it is happening, he said. Snap Chat in particular is problematic, because one thing he is seeing more of is students capturing a mean Snap Chat via a screenshot and complaining about it, when sometimes that student was the instigator.

“I’ve asked them, ‘What did you send first,’ “ Mosley said.

Mosley, who splits his time between the two high schools, said the district is continuing to work on a number of programs to improve the culture in all of the schools. There are peer-led programs such as Brick Youth, started by the mayor’s office, and organizations such as the Brick High School-based Society of Influencers and Game Changers, a group of teens representing all aspects of the student body who aim to lead by example as well as by urging others to do the right thing.

But they are taking it a step farther and trying to reduce some of the conflict throughout the town in a message called #BrickUnited.

The rivalry between the town’s two high schools has spilled over from a friendly competition between the sports to something more angry.

Mosley, who debuted a short film done by the Society of Influencers, said the goal is to bring the town back together in hopes of quelling some of the conflicts and improving school culture.

“That’s why we show the Dragon and the Mustang having pizza together,” he said of the short film, which he said is just the first in what they hope will be a series of films promoting unity in Brick.

The bottom line, however, is that parents have to be involved, he said.

“It’s going to take an effort of students, staff and parents,” he said. “You need to be aware of what your children are doing online.”

(Twitter is a source of frequent conflict. Photo credit: Karen Wall)