Anger after videos show Billerica High bullying
By Elizabeth Dobbins
BILLERICA — Several videos showing a group of teen girls in a locker room at Billerica Memorial High School shouting and, at one point, throwing a binder at another girl circulated on social media this week, outraging many in the school’s community.
“This is not what we teach our kids to do,” said Superintendent Tim Piwowar. “We teach kids to stand-up for those that need our help.”
Piwowar declined to describe the details of the incident or any punitive actions taken by the district, citing student privacy.
“The school department has taken appropriate action,” he said.
Deputy Police Chief Roy Frost said a student resource officer is working with the district in an ongoing investigation. No criminal charges have been filed, he said.
Piwowar said the district has a bullying intervention plan and high school Principal Tom Murphy spoke to the assembled student body on Thursday, several days after the altercation.
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Bullying is ‘biggest threat children face’ as six in ten adults fear their youngsters being victimised ‘in or outside school’
By David Wooding
BULLYING is the biggest threat faced by children today, a parents’ survey has revealed.
Six in ten adults say they fear their youngsters being victimised in or outside school more than any other risk.
They listed it well above sexual abuse, drug addiction, boozing and smoking a their greatest concern.
But many other mums and dads worry constantly about their kids piling on weight or being affecting by unrealistic expectations of body image portrayed on TV.
The everyday fears of parents are laid bare in a survey by telly presenter and campaigner Martin Roberts.
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Research evidence on bullying prevention at odds with what schools are doing
by JILL BARSHAY
In September 2018, I wrote about the so-called “Trump effect” on bullying in schools, citing a study that found higher bullying rates in GOP districts after the 2016 presidential election. But that piece raised an important question: what should schools do to address and prevent bullying?
The scientific evidence on what works is complicated.
There’s a whole cottage industry of consultants selling anti-bullying programs to schools but academic researchers say there is no proof they work. There are some small studies with positive results. But when reputable researchers study efforts to expand these strategies across schools among many students and compare bullying rates with those at schools that didn’t receive the intervention, there tends not to be a difference. For example, this 2007 review of anti-bullying programs found “little discernible effect on youth participants.”
“A lot of us know the dirty secret that these [bullying-prevention] programs don’t work out in the real world,” said Ron Avi Astor, an educational psychologist at the University of Southern California and an expert in bullying prevention. “All of us talk about it.”
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