This week we took up the anti-bullying bill that was carried over from last session. Early in the week we tabled it in order to try and get the parties involved including the sponsor, Representative Morrison of South Portland, the ACLU, and the Maine School Management and Maine Principals Association to come to a full agreement on the language in the bill. I sat in on the meeting and thought we had come to an agreement that was a viable compromise. However, when we brought the bill back up in a second work session on Thursday the MPA and MSMA once again opposed the bill and voiced opposition. Based upon that I moved that we table it once again and give them a last chance to get it together. After the session I did tell both the MPA and the MSMA representatives that I was disappointed in the way this was going. I also told them that if they did not manage to reach an agreement on a compromise that at our next hearing I would move to pass the bill as presented in spite of their efforts to derail this bill.
Bullying has always been with us, but it has never been as widespread. When I was in school there was bullying, and our governor has basically admitted he was a bully when he talked about stealing candy from younger kids on Halloween. But the bullying was more limited than it is today. Now bullying can take on so many different forms. It may be physical bullying in the school yard, but it can also become mush more due to the use of the internet and the use of email as well as social media such as Facebook. It can also involve smart phones and the ability to tweet messages, send pictures and more. Those avenues never used to exist, and they are so easy to use, and hide behind by using screen names.
As I have expressed to the various parties involved in this, it is not acceptable to do nothing. Just last spring we had a young woman who attended Erskine Academy commit suicide, due in large part to the bullying she was subjected to. While some might think there are enough rules in place, they obviously were not effective in her case, and aren’t working to protect many other children. School will have a hard time dealing with this issue, but is an issue that isn’t going away, or easy to change. Leadership will be required to help change school attitudes about the problem and to make bullying socially unacceptable in our schools across the state.
But we can make those changes, and you can help make it better as well. If you have kids be sure to talk to them and if they are being bullied make sure to contact the school and talk to them about it. If you see a kid being bullied, speak up and stop it. That may not be easy for you, but if will make a difference!