Bully tactics take bashing by legislators

      While school violence in the form of loaded guns makes national headlines weekly, a quieter, less shocking phenomenon continues to plague local schools. It begins in grade school with name-calling, pushing and taunting. And it doesn't take long for kindergartners to first become acquainted with the concept of a school bully.
      While many might think that the consequences of being bullied are minimal, others reeling from the March 5 shooting in California are facing its harsh realities. Friends of Andy Williams, the 15-year-old boy charged with shooting to death two classmates, said he complained of being bullied in the weeks prior to the murders.
      Even before that shooting, some New York State legislators decided it was high time the fear caused by bullying was removed from the classroom. Identical bills are being moved through committees in both the Senate and Assembly addressing the need for dignity for all students.
      The legislation, sponsored in the Assembly by Education Chair Steven Sanders (D-Manhattan) and in the Senate by Thomas Duane (D-Manhattan), addresses the kind of hate-based bullying that recently has been cited as a contributing factor in school violence and requires educators to implement comprehensive policies aimed at preventing it.
      The dignity act would require school administrators, teachers, parents and students to recognize and address bias-related behavior that interferes with student safety and learning. According to a memorandum attached to the Senate bill, the purpose of the act is to afford all persons in public schools an environment free of harassment and discrimination based on actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnic group, religion, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender or sex.
      Members of the Assembly Education Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the act, 25 to 2, on March 20. It will next go before the Assembly Codes Committee. Among its key provisions are developing rules to prevent and respond to discriminatory violence; incorporating discrimination awareness and sensitivity into civility, citizenship and character education curricula; establishing teacher, staff and administrative training guidelines for dealing with diversity, reducing discriminatory behaviors and reporting incidents of discrimination and bias harassment to the State Education Department.
      Members of the Dignity for All Students Coalition praised the assembly for the recent move. They also addressed the concern that some people might interpret the bill as an attempt to push homosexual lifestyles.
      This legislation does not force students to accept gay kids, immigrant kids, deeply religious kids or disabled kids, said Ross Levi, legislative council for the Empire State Pride Agenda and co-facilitator of the coalition. It simply offers protection for certain groups whose differences make them frequent targets. As long as the law requires students to be in school, then schools need to be harassment-free zones where kids can reach their full potential.
      This law picks up where Project S.A.V.E. (Safe Alternatives and Violence Education) falls short, according Levi. Project S.A.V.E was passed in November and will be effective July 1 and requires schools to develop district-wide policies and procedures for dealing with either real or perceived violent behavior.
      Project S.A.V.E. does not force school districts to address bias-harassment and prohibit it, Levi said. It opens the door, but does not take them there.
      Levi concedes that some schools already have proactive programs in place that address bias-related harassment. But not enough schools do, he said.
      Dr. Edward Price, superintendent of Island Park schools, said his schools haven't waited for legislation to deal with bullying behavior. We were doing this long before S.A.V.E.; it's part of the curriculum, he said.
      Richard A. McMahon is the principal of Lincoln Orens Middle School in Island Park and a founding member of the South Shore Anti-Bias Consortium. He said regular conferences that deal with different forms of prejudice are conducted at the school by the consortium. But, he admits that of all the prejudices, homosexuality is the hardest to deal with. You can deal with black and white, but homosexuality is totally different, he said. He said the students' and, more important, their parents' religious beliefs are the leading reasons why the topic of homosexuality is not part of the anti-bias dialogue as much as other forms of discrimination.
      According to the Pride Agenda, high school students hear anti-gay epithets 25 times per day. This, the organization said, negatively affects all students. Gay and lesbian students, and those perceived to be lesbian or gay, in particular are the victims of severe widespread discrimination and harassment in our public schools.
      The Agenda cites a study conducted in 14 cities during 1993 that concluded that lesbians and gay youth ages 14-21 found that 44 percent were threatened with physical attack, 33 percent had objects thrown at them, 30 percent were chased or followed, and 17 percent were physically assaulted. Moreover, the study said that one-third of the youths surveyed reported to no one, not even teachers or administrators, intervened in these circumstances.
      Barbara Kirsh, a volunteer for Child Abuse Prevention Services who gives seminars on bullying and harassment in classrooms throughout Nassau County, said that when asked to anonymously write down a term that would hurt them the most, middle-school boys usually choose the word most commonly used as a disparaging, slang reference to a gay man.
      Her four years of experience conducting seminars and a lifetime of interacting with children as the director of summer camps, substantiates the study's findings. She said children who are perceived to be homosexual by their peers suffer even greater alienation because it is hard for them to turn to their parents. Sometimes children who are being teased or mistreated because of their perceived or actual sexuality tell their parents and their parents become more concerned with the truth of the rumor rather than the pain it causes, she said.
      These kinds of occurrences lead to feelings of desperation, according to Kirsh, and the groups that are sponsoring the dignity act. What's to stop it from happening here, said Assemblyman Robert Barra, referring to the recent shootings in California. He is a member of the Assembly Education Committee and one of the 25 who passed the Act.
      The act, according to Levi, would provide legal leverage for parents who believed a school failed to protect their child from bias-harassment. It would also protect teachers who take appropriate disciplinary action against students who engage in bias-harassment, according to John Myers, director of the Coalition for Safer Schools of New York State. He said teachers who enforce a code of conduct that specifically addresses language or actions that are deemed biased will be protected from accusations that they are encouraging or foisting certain types of lifestyles upon the students.
      A substitute teacher who taught for more than 200 days at a local public school, his name was erased from a list of available substitutes kept by the principal because he told a student not to use an anti-gay epithet, he recalled. He later petitioned and won a place back on the list.
      Levi believes the world is evolving in a positive direction and that in ten years we probably won't be dealing with discrimination. But, we can't wait ten years to save the children who are hurting now, he said.