Getting Meaner About Bullying

Bullying is not new, but advanced technology has both assisted in the capture and creation of the act.

Through mobile phone video capabilities, taunts and beatings have been recorded and widely broadcast. And cyber-bullying is now part of the American lexicon.

Decades ago, “sticks and stones” was an adage used to explain away bullying, but today’s consequences have changed, morphing into something potentially fatal.

Throughout the U.S., school districts, teachers and parents are trying to find ways to curb, if not erase bullying.

has a “zero-tolerance” policy for bullying, according to spokesman Jeremy Nishihara. There are several programs such as Project Cornerstone and Peace Builders in place, too.

But Santa Clara County Office of Education Board President Joseph Di Salvo said he thinks the county needs to set an example and do more.

He has created a new Advisory Committee on Bullying for the county with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender focus.

“These kids feel like no one really has their back,” Di Salvo says. “They believe their teachers wouldn’t understand, that administration wouldn’t understand. When children deal with sexual orientation at an early age, it’s imperative to allow them to talk it through with an adult.”

Di Salvo, who worked as a principal at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto for 20 years, met with various people he thought would work best in this new committee and says that John Lindner, a Franklin-McKinley School District board member and Oak Grove School District teacher, was a perfect fit.

“He is the only ‘out’ member of school boards in Santa Clara County that we know of,” Di Salvo says. “He’s a gay educator.”

The goal of this new advisory committee is to come up with "outside the box" recommendations for things that the county can do, including the formation of Gay/Straight Alliance clubs on school campuses to help eradicate or at least reduce bullying.

“I think that eventually, it could mean for professional development, a pilot project even at one of the campuses,” Di Salvo says. “I know it’s going to be very controversial but I think that we need to approach it.”

Several high profile bully-related suicides in 2010 brought this ugly side of campus life to the spotlight.

"We had three, four, five suicides that were bullying-related last year but it's always fleeting," Di Salvo says. "People talk about it and then it goes away. We as a county board of education need to see what this advisory counsel can do."

There are already several programs in place to help curb bullying, including Project Corner Stone, Peace Builders and PBIS, but Di Salvo says more needs to be done.

"Just to have environments free of this kind of bias and prejudice and hateful and hurtful behavior is important," he says.

Di Salvo also notes that litigation that costs school district in the millions over lawsuits, like the 1999 Morgan Hill case, can be avoided if parents and educators are made aware of the laws surrounding bullying, including a new bill proposed Feb. 17 that aims at bullying of LGBT students at the college level. He also notes that the number one reason for students staying home from school is bullying, which also translates into a revenue loss connected to daily attendance.

“Having lived in a school environment most of my life, words do hurt, and the old adage of 'sticks and stones' are just not true and needs to be tossed out the door,” he says. “Words are very hurtful.”

The committee is due to come back to the board with recommendations the third Wednesday of April.