Mallory's Army Brings Bullying Prevention Event To Union County

UNION COUNTY, NJ — We hope you’ve noticed over the past year that we’ve been focusing on bullying and cyberbullying, a confounding national crisis that turns youths’ lives upside down with unimaginable angst and dread, sometimes with deadly consequences. With each story, we’ve heard poignant stories from Patch readers in New Jersey and others who were bullied and overcame it, but also many who continue to struggle with the damage done by bullies to their self-esteem.

Many common threads emerged in emails from our readers: Teachers and other educators have suggested everything from first-period decompression time to classroom contracts with students on how they’re expected to treat one another. But for all the readers who said schools need to do more to foster an anti-bullying culture, as many said parents should talk more with their kids about bullying and keep closer track on their social media habits.

And in a loud chorus, they said Americans need to stop wringing their hands and work at all levels to create a world safe from bullying.

That’s one of the purposes of National Bullying Prevention Month, observed annually during October to bring attention to the problem and involve people in Morris County and nationwide in a conversation on how to create a world safe from bullying.

MALLORY'S ARMY CONTINUES THE GOOD FIGHT
The issue of bullying really hit home in New Jersey last year, when 12-year-old Mallory Grossman killed herself following what her parents have called horrific bullying. Parents Dianne and Seth Grossman have channeled their grief into advocacy, starting Mallory's Army, a organization that seeks to eradicate bullying through education, and hosts educational workshops for parents and educators.

Dianne Grossman has taught workshops to educate parents on anti-bullying and harassment rules in place at local schools, and has provided anti-bullying information to parents and educators. The organization has hosted informational booths at local carnivals, spoken in front of the New Jersey State Policeman's PBA, and advocated for more comprehensive anti-bullying laws.

• Read More: 1 Year Later, Mallory Grossman Lives On In Anti-Bullying Efforts
• Read More: 'Mallory's Army' Fights Back Against Bullying After 12-Year-Old's Sudden Death

"When Mallory died, we had two options. We could lay on the couch and cry, or we could do something to make a difference, and we chose to make a difference," older sister Carlee said while accepting an award from TLC in September. "We created Mallory's Army to spread the message that you are not alone, there are other kids like you, and it doesn't have to go as far as suicide for there to be change."

The group is hosting three educational opportunities and a benefit motorcycle ride during National Bullying Prevention Month. An Oct. 2 event is already sold out, but tickets are still available for an Oct. 9 event in Summit, and an Oct. 11 discussion in Montville.

A motorcycle ride and BBQ sponsored by Garden State Harley-Davidson is behind held on Oct. 20. Riders, passengers, and non-riders are all welcome to attend. Alex & Ani in Bridgewater are also donating a portion of proceeds from certain sales to Mallory's Army.

BULLIED SPRINGFIELD STUDENT LEAVES SCHOOL

Last year, Springfield fourth-grader Emma Spektor stopped going to school over an intense fear of bullies.
While Spektor stayed home a federal lawsuit against the Springfield School District filed by Emma's mother Irina was filed.

Irina has said in the past that she will keep Emma home for own safety and didn't want a repeat situation such as in Rockaway where 12-year-old Mallory Grossman took her own life following bullying at her school.

"I would rather her repeat fourth grade then lose her forever," Irina previously said.

Emma said the bullying began when she was in the third grade during the 2016-17 school year. She opened up to her mother about the daily bullying at the end of last year. She then found out that her entire class, the same students and teacher, were being kept together for the fourth grade — otherwise known as looping.

The bullying continued into fourth grade until Irina pulled Emma out of school.

Superintendent Michael Davino gave a 20-point speech at the Nov. 6 board meeting attempting to correct what he claimed were half-truths reported by Spektor and parroted by the media. (Read the 20-point speech here: Mom Of Bullied Springfield 4th Grader Responds To Superintendent)

A group of parents have also started a movement called "Limit Looping" as a result of this incident and others at the school district.

Since Spektor went public about her bullying situation at the district, parents shared with the Board of Education disturbing accounts of bullying incidents they say have gone unaddressed by the school district. (See Related: Disturbing Accounts Of Rampant Bullying Shared At Packed Meeting)

More parents also came forward to talk with Patch about their own children's experiences in the district. One parent even said she moved because of the bullying. (See Related: Springfield Family Moves To Get Away From Bullies)

Another parent claimed a bullying incident was caught on school's cameras and nothing was done. (See Related: Springfield Bullying Incident Allegedly Caught On Camera)

UNION SCHOOLS CELEBRATE RESPECT

Several school districts throughout the Union County are commemorating National Bullying Prevention Month with a series of in-house programs and events.

Over in Clark, the school district has a series of events planned for the first week of October as part of the Week of Respect but the staff and administration also utilize the Frank K. Hehnly’s Positive Behavior Interventions & Support Programs. Clark officials say they are dedicated to the education of the whole child and that dedication is rooted in the belief that students’ success is directly related to feelings of acceptance and positive self-esteem.

There are programs in place to promote a bully-free, caring learning environment such as :

• Hehnly H.E.R.O.s Club, “Help Everyone Respect Others Club

The Hehnly HEROs Club has been instrumental over the last sixteen years in spreading an anti- bullying message. The club meets twice monthly and student representatives from grades 3 – 5 plan events and share the anti-bully message with their peers and buddies.

• Making a Difference Recognition Program

The “Making a Difference” Recognition Program recognizes students recommended for making a difference within or outside of the school community.

• Buddy Class Program

The Buddy Class Program is a school-wide program that increases students’ opportunities to work together and make connections with other students in the community. Fourth grade classes are “buddied” with kindergartners, for example.

• Morning Meeting

The best way to start the day is to make connections with your classmates and teachers. At the start of each day classroom teachers facilitate classroom-based, community-building meetings called the “Morning Meeting.”

• The K-Kids Program

K-Kids, sponsored by the local Kiwanis, coordinates service projects to give back to the community. Students in grades 3 – 5 meet throughout the school year to plan and facilitate community service events.

• Mentor Links

Mentor Links is a program designed to connect the special needs population with the general education population. Students mentors are recommended by staff. The program has made a positive impression on the special needs students who establish social relationships with their mentors. It is refreshing to see these connections flourish during the lunch–recess block.

Hehnly P.R.I.D.E.

Hehnly PRIDE, is a new school-wide positive, behavior approach initiative established to promote a social culture that ensures safe and caring learning environment for all students. It is designed to reinforce lifelong skills needed to be contributing members of the greater community. Patience, Respect, Integrity, Determination, and Excellence represents the values emphasized throughout the school community. This approach replaces the Olwues, bully-prevention program established a few years back. PRIDE will utitlize the Olweus format with monthly class meetings that will focus on the values of PRIDE to promote a caring and acceptance and socially responsive environment for all.

Caring School Community

Caring School Community is a social and emotional learning (SEL) program designed to strengthen students’ connectedness to school, an important element for increasing academic achievement and motivation for learning. SEL is a process through which children acquire and apply knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to understand and manage emotions, to set and achieve goals, to feel and show empathy for others, and to establish and maintain positive relationships, and to make responsible decisions.

Gayle Colucci, the District Culture and Climate Coordinator for the Cranford School District says that their district is also participating in the Week of Respect with a series of initiatives.

Proposed activities that address anti bullying, elimination of social isolation, inclusion, kindness as well as Week of Respect activities are:

• Bullies2Buddies- Empower Yourself assembly program for both middle schools in November- presenter,
• Brooks Gibbs: Brooks Gibbs is an award winning social skills educator who teaches students, parents, and teachers how to build emotional resilience and live by the Golden Rule. Over 2,500 schools have hired him to speak allowing him to reach 2 million students face-to-face. His viral videos have amassed more than 200 million views worldwide. Read books and have open discussions and sharing of thoughts that discuss kindness, inclusion of all, and respect.
• Morning announcements/quotes for the day that address Respect
• Buddy classrooms as well as buddy benches focusing on inclusion, kindness, and respect
• Kindness families: cross grade activity for the entire year that centers in on inclusion, kindness and respect
• A bulletin board that highlights students who “get caught” doing something goo
• Department of Education activities for the Week of Respect are distributed to all schools through the character education coordinator and planned with each school’s social worker/guidance counselors
• Start with Hello- initiative though the Sandy Hook Promise- National program

The Westfield School District is also hosting the Week of Respect from Monday through Friday. All ten of schools have activities planned across the district including assemblies focusing on character education, age-appropriate stories on respect and kindness read in the elementary grades, daily announcements on the public address system about “What is respect?”

A few specific Week of Respect activities include:

• An origami “Make a Chance, Take a Chance to be Kind” activity at McKinley with each student making his/her own origami creation with a message of kindness to be displayed around the building.
• An 8th grade language arts “Giving Tree” at Roosevelt Intermediate School where students add “leaves” with ideas for enhancing the classroom culture.
• First graders at Wilson are writing in their journals about respect, decorating the letters that spell “respect,” and displaying them.
• An assembly focusing on the Six Pillars of Character and “The 7 Habits of Happy Kids” by Sean Covery.
• Mix It Up at Lunch Day (an international campaign that teaches tolerance) at the intermediate schools where students are asked to sit at lunch with other student(s) they might not know.

Beyond the Week of Respect Westfield has other activities set for the month:

• The Transition Program, a peer leadership program at Westfield High School that teams juniors and seniors up with incoming freshmen to help the 9th graders integrate into the school community. The peer leaders also do some outreach in the spring with 8th graders who will attend WHS in the fall.
• Both Edison and Roosevelt Intermediate Schools reward “Upstander” behavior, identifying and recognizing student Upstanders with weekly or monthly awards.
• The district continues to focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) for both students and staff.
• The elementary and intermediate school students make or bring an extra lunch on a certain day each week to donate to those in need.

K-12 Director of Guidance and Counseling Maureen Mazzarese said the mission of the Westfield Public School District is fostered and developed from the day a student steps into this school system, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

"The district, in partnership with families and community, educates all students to reach their highest potential as productive, well-balanced and responsible citizens who respect individual differences and diversity in an ever changing world. That mission is reflected in our curriculum, in our expectations of student conduct and behavior in our classrooms, hallways, cafeterias and fields, and in our co-curricular activities," Mazzarese said. "It is as much about character education as it is about academic excellence. Every student starts with the knowledge that we are a community and this is how a community functions. Our community is based on mutual respect, diversity and inclusion.”

For their part, the Summit Public School District says their Week of Respect offerings are just a sampling of activities, respect themes and activities will continue throughout the school year, because in Summit Public Schools respecting one's self and others is not a focus for just a week, but part of the fabric of their community.

As Summit Public Schools kicks off the Week of Respect, Counselors, Teachers, and Administrators said they are supporting many initiatives focusing on respecting one's self and others.

At the elementary schools, students, teachers, and counselors will be reading kindness and respect quotes during the morning announcements and delivering class lessons helping students feel safe, happy and positive about school. As part of the District Anti-Bullying curriculum, students will participate in their first of many Take a Stand lesson focusing on teaching the value of being respectful citizens in the school communities. In addition, each school will be celebrating individually with a Spirit Day, Themed Bulletin Boards, Mix It Up Day Lunch, or a presentation by the Kent Place Ethics Institute - all of which will focus on understanding and valuing respect.

This year at Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School the Week of Respect theme will be I Have Your Back. During the week activities will focus on this theme and will include reading daily respect quotes through morning announcements. Students playing the game Name that Tune in homeroom featuring songs about respect. There will be a display made of paper t-shirts with student artwork showing how they are going to support each other during the school year, and for a finale, they will host a Backwards Day to represent how they have each other's back.

At Summit High School motivational quotes and emojis have been posted around the school to inspire students to be positive, kind and compassionate. The Students Helping Students Club designed a prevention display in the main gallery promoting positive mental health. The Club will be teaming up with the Art Club to paint positivity rocks and placing them in the Zen Garden where students can find a quiet place to build inner strength.

In October there are three important programs scheduled all of which will focus on enhancing self-esteem and the importance of respecting one's self and others. A parent program is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 3, Adolescence, the Good the Bad and the Healthy helping parents to raise resilient students with a strong sense of self. 11th and 12th graders will attend an assembly, I’m That Guy which will focus on safety, healthy living, and making positive decisions and the 9th and 10th graders will attend You Don’t Know Me Till You Know Me focused on empathy, understanding, and kindness.

A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE

Once viewed as a childhood “rite of passage” that toughened kids to handle the pressures of adulthood, bullying and its more insidious digital twin, cyberbullying, is seen by many experts as a major public health issue — on par with heart disease, cancer and diabetes — with devastating and often long-term effects like the loss of self-esteem, heightened anxiety and depression.

We've heard a lot of feedback from Union County residents about what their children have experienced both in the hallways and online, and we always want to hear your stories. Have you, or your child, experienced bullying or cyberbullying, have a suggestion about how to stem it or an event to publicize? Comment at the end of the story, or email russ.crespolini@patch.com and copy bullies@patch.com. You can post Bullying Prevention Month and many other events right on Patch.

Statistics vary, but an aggregate of 80 different studies on bullying suggests one in five American students between 12 and 18 is bullied at some point during their middle or high school years. Traditional bullying — name calling, public humiliation, isolation, physical violence and that sort of thing — occurs most often, with 35 percent of kids reporting they’ve been targeted in one of those ways. The studies cited by the PACER Center, which established National Bullying Prevention Month, show that 15 percent of kids surveyed report being cyberbullied.

And though it occurs less often, cyberbullying — which has resulted in a disturbing string of suicides by adolescents and teenagers — is especially hard to stop. While experts say most cyberbullied kids don’t kill themselves, the long-tailed internet makes a taunt live longer than one flung on the schoolyard. Kids can escape traditional bullying in the safety of their homes, but because social media is so intertwined with how kids communicate, they never really escape it.

READ: Bullied To Death: When Kids Kill With Words

And because cyberbullies have the stealth of anonymity, “empathy tends to fade to zero,” NoBully.org founder Nicholas Carlisle told Patch.

He was knocked around 40 or so years ago as an awkward 12-year-old. The torment persisted through high school, but as tough as it was, his experience was markedly different from the torture kids endure today, he says — and it’s not just that he was attacked in a physical as opposed to online space.

“Online, you can’t see the whites of their eyes,” Carlisle said. “If you can see someone, that’s often a break upon people’s aggression — not always, but it does seem to have some break upon crossing the line.”
The full consequences of bullying on the brain aren’t fully understood, but kids who are targeted by bullies in childhood and adolescence are at increased risk for psychological problems that can stretch into adulthood, according to experts. In the moment, bullied kids may be unable to sleep or suffer a range of stomach issues and headaches. Later on, they’re at risk for depression, anxiety, and alcohol and drug use.

OCT. 24 UNITY DAY

Among the marquee National Bullying Prevention Month activities is Unity Day, observed on Wednesday, Oct. 24, when everyone is encouraged to wear and show orange to send a message that no child should ever experience bullying.

“Orange provides a powerful, visually compelling expression of solidarity,” Paula Goldberg, the executive director of the PACER Center, said in a statement. “Whether it’s hundreds of individuals at a school wearing orange, store owners offering orange products or a community changing a landmark to orange, the vibrant statement becomes a conversation starter, sending the supportive, universal message that bullying is never acceptable behavior.”

Here’s more about Unity Day:

THE BULLY MENACE: WHAT’S AHEAD
During October and beyond, several experts have agreed to answer readers’ questions about bullying, ranging from how to keep their kids from becoming targets to what to do if their kids are the bullies. We’ll also delve into some of the issues surrounding bullying —
Take a look back at some of the stories in our series:

• America’s Shameful Truth About School Shooters And Bullying
• They All Failed Changed Child: Malden Bullying Detailed
• Bullies, Their Targets The Same In A Surprising Number Of Cases
• ‘Everyday, I Wear Your Words,’ Teen Tells Bullies In Video
• Teen’s ‘I Wear Your Words’ Video Inspires Nashville Songwriters
• Bullying Of Mallory Grossman, 12, Spelled Out In Wrongful Death Lawsuit
• Poetry Teacher Helps Bullied Kids Open Their Tortured Minds
• Why These Kindergartners Start Each Day With A Simple Handshake

If you have a question or want to share your story, please email bullies@patch.com.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock)

Thanks for reading! Have a news tip you'd like to share? Or maybe you have a press release you would like to submit or a correction you'd like to request? Send an email to russ.crespolini@patch.com