TERRE HAUTE —
Next week, the Vigo County School Corp. plans to launch a comprehensive, ongoing bullying prevention campaign aimed at middle school students.
It’s called HERO, which stands for Helping Everyone Respect Others. “We want everyone in the schools to show respect to each other,” said Kathy Miller, one of several principal interns who helped plan the campaign.
The district announced the program at a news conference Wednesday.
The project kicks off next week with activities in each middle school that include teacher-led lesson plans, anti-bullying videos and activities led by high school Link Crew students.
The goal is to have open discussion about bullying and peer pressure, said Joe Thoma, a Terre Haute North Vigo principal intern.
A key component is getting high school students “extremely involved,” Thoma said.
As an ongoing activity, there will be a HERO box in each middle school where people, including school employees, can nominate students who have stopped or prevented bullying.
Each month, 14 middle school students at each school will be chosen to receive HERO shirts, and they’ll have lunch with high school student leaders.
Another component will be a bullying link on the Vigo County School Corp. website in which bullying incidents can be reported; that’s expected to be available Monday, said Superintendent Dan Tanoos.
There also will be a parent link and brochure on the district website to help educate parents about bullying. A newsletter is planned.
One of the things principal interns discovered in their research is that “a lot of students in middle school don’t even know that they are bullied,” Thoma said.
The project will include a public awareness campaign using television, radio stations and billboards.
There will be banners in the middle schools and celebrities will be asked to wear HERO shirts. There will be ongoing activities to encourage students to be proactive in preventing and stopping bullying.
HERO shirts will be available for school staff and community members to purchase, not only to support the campaign but also to help fund it, Miller said.
The initiative is the result of concerns raised by middle school student council leaders who sit on a School Board advisory group. In response, the district asked secondary-level principal interns to come up with an anti-bullying program, Tanoos said.
“We really feel the middle school is where we need to make our emphasis,” he said.
Tanoos encouraged school administrators to support the project. “It needs to be embedded in our school system rather than placed on a shelf,” Tanoos said. “It really won’t work if we don’t step up.”
When bullying incidents are reported online, “We’ll address it that day or as soon as we can to ensure it’s resolved,” Tanoos said.
“And we won’t rest until it is resolved, because if we come short of that, the problem festers and becomes bigger.”
Administrators do “take every single report seriously,” Tanoos said. “It doesn’t matter how big or small it might be.”
Katie Cammack, a student council co-president at Terre Haute South Vigo, believes bullying has its greatest impact at the middle school level, but the effects on a student can carry over into high school.
“I think if we stop bullying in its tracks in middle school, and if we teach empathy and feeling for each other, then we can stop bullying altogether in the high schools,” she said.
C.J. Brown, student council leader at Sarah Scott Middle School, is glad the district has come up with a bullying prevention campaign.
“Some kids might not even want to come to school because they are being bullied. And if we have a way to solve these problems, maybe they’ll end up going to school,” he said.
Bullying does go on, Brown said, but it usually happens after school “because they don’t want to get in trouble at school.”
Michaela Schuld, student council leader at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, believes the campaign “will help a lot.” It will cause students to take the problem seriously and to realize bullying is a bad thing that should be stopped, she said.
Tanoos said the district has had a focus on bullying in the past “but not to the extent of the campaign we’re rolling out now.”
And once the district tackles an issue and makes it a focus, “We’ve always been successful in helping solve the problem,” he said.
Other administrative interns who developed the campaign are Amy Barbour, Chris Barrett, Jennifer Hall, Ashley Hammond, Bryan Hammond and Jack Miller.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.
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