Bullying in our schools: The unspoken crime

 Not wanting to go to school is a common complaint of middle school students. Sleeping in and spending time with friends tends to be much more appealing than schoolwork and cafeteria food. 

For Red Oak eighth grader Kat Colabello, though, homework was not where her anti-school stance originated. 

Fear of bullies kept Colabello from wanting to go to school.

Bullying is something Red Oak Superintendent Terry Schmidt said occurs at some level in all district buildings. Each year, Iowa districts are required to submit bullying incidents to the Department of Education; last year Red Oak had eight incidents that were investigated and deemed as bullying, most of which occurred at the middle school level.  

“The number is low,” Schmidt said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem, though, it just means not all are reported.” 

For Colabello, not reporting the whole story was part of the problem. 

In a letter sent to area media and school administrators in January, Colabello said bullying was keeping her from doing well in school, and she was frustrated nothing was being done to stop it. 

After Colabello appeared on an Omaha news station, Schmidt said he and Middle School Principal Nate Perrien were surprised because the incidents Colabello did report were handled as disciplinary actions rather than bullying because they were one-time occurrences involving different “bullies.”

“The most important element here is a situation needs to be reported to an adult at home and an adult at school, otherwise we can’t do anything,” Perrien  said. “And that’s the unfortunate thing with Kat, we just didn’t know what was going on and how she was feeling.”

Since her letter was released, Perrien said he met with Colabello and her mother and there haven’t been any more bullying incidents. 

“Middle school is brutal on kids to begin with; it’s a rough age,” Perrien said. “They’re at the age where they think they can handle everything themselves or it will go away over time, but sometimes, things will just get out of hand if not reported. That’s where the gray area really comes into play.”

The gray area, he added, is what makes bullying cases hard to define and hard to settle.  

The middle school sees around one perceived bullying incident per week, usually in the form of name-calling. After investigating the matter, Perrien said the majority of cases are one-time disciplinary offenses rather than bullying. 

Olweus, a bullying prevention program used by the district, defines bullying as, “aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time.”

“This is just a time where everything is bullying,” Perrien said. “Our society has become desensitized to bullying because everything could be taken as bullying.”

Despite the misconception, Perrien and Schmidt said no reported case is taken lightly, and following the incident involving Colabello, the school board reviewed its bullying policies to ensure all board members and building administrators were in agreement on how to handle bullying.  

Every bullying case is different and most are left up to the discretion of the building principal, according to Schmidt. All allegations are investigated, which includes interviewing all the parties involved, and punishments are distributed based on severity and frequency, ranging from a warning to out-of-school suspension. 

Parents are also informed of the situation. 

Schmidt said, at that point, parents of the student being bullied have the option to contact law enforcement and press charges, which he said rarely happens, but is possible. 

Red Oak isn’t the only district facing the timeless problem of bullies. Both Stanton and Southwest Valley administrators said bullying is a problem, though not as severe as it may be at larger schools.

“I can’t say it’s not a big problem because every incident is big to that student,” Stanton Dean of Students Kevin Blunt said, “but I will say we probably see less than bigger districts.”

On average, Blunt said Stanton sees two-three reported incidents per month, most of which, after investigation, are deemed disciplinary offenses.  

Like in Red Oak, bullying tends to be more prevalent at the middle school age, according to Blunt and Southwest Valley Middle School Principal Lora Top.

“There’s a lack of maturity at this age,” Top said about middle school students. “It’s mostly teasing and rumors, but the problem is, a lot of the times it goes both ways. It’s a matter of mutual disrespect, being intolerant of people’s differences. The people who complain about bullying are often at fault themselves, but those truly being bullied are the ones we don’t hear about, which is what makes bullying so hard.”

While keeping students safe is a top priority at Southwest Valley and every school, Top said part of responsibility when it comes to bullying prevention lies on the parents. 

“Teach your kids to be respectful, and if they are the ones being bullied, encourage them to stand up for themselves and tell the school what’s going on,” she said. “We can’t do anything if we don’t hear about it; work with the school, not against it.”