I just had the privilege of being at Barstow Unified School Board where they are in phase one of implementing our reportbullying.com program.
What will make this program work is that everyone who is on top is on board. Joni James who is head of pupil services was instrumental in getting all the schools on board before I arrived.
I can’t tell you how important it is to have the principals and teachers attend the assemblies. The assemblies not only educate students but teachers as well.
When the principal is on board and attends the anti bullying assemblies it allows them to understand what our program is all about. You see we offer an email alert system to guide them every step of the way and when the principal is present at our anti bullying assemblies it makes sense when they receive our alerts and they quickly understand why and the purpose of each alert.
I have to say that I have met some incredible principals, board members and so many teachers but the class of each adult and student that I met here at Barstow was beyond incredible. The only aspect that they are missing is teacher training and looks like this will be done in August 2014. The importance of training teachers is critical. We teach students to speak up but if the teacher automatically dismisses it for a conflict this is where more behavioral problems can increase.
In one statistic it showed that 99% of teachers would intervene if they witness bullying, the problem with that is most incidences are when a student speaks up about bullying and statistics show that less then 30% of teachers follow through when a student speaks up.
Barstow understands this, and that is why I’m so excited to see the reduction of bullying in their school system over the next years
Let me finish off with this 3 cheers for Barstow well done keep up the great work….
