The U.S. Secret Service came to Secaucus High School/Middle School on Nov. 13 to give a presentation on “Hazards of Electonic Medium,” which included a discussion of cyberbullying, online social networking, texting, “sexting,” and online safety for young people, addressing issues that have made national headlines.

Many parents, fearing that adult sex perverts online try to lure their children to an in-person meeting, vigorously screen and censor their kids’ e-mail and Facebook accounts, keeping the perverts out, but maybe letting another threat in.

“There’s a myth that the number one threat to young people online comes from sexual predators,” said Stuart Green, MSW, MA, founder of the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Coalition, last week. “In fact, the number one threat comes from bullies, people they know, who are harassing them on social message boards.”

“You can bet that about 10 percent of the kids in any school are experiencing bullying, severely and persistently,” Green said. “Now, that’s bullying in general. But bullying online is an increasingly common form of bullying. It’s really the fastest growing form of harassment.”

Welcome to the age of cyberbullying.
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“You can bet that about 10 percent of the kids in any school are experiencing bullying, severely and persistently.” – Stuart Green
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Bullying itself has been around since people were invented, and the problem was thrust into the national conscience after the Columbine murders in 1999. That year, Columbine (CO) High School seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people before committing suicide in the worst incident of high school violence in this country. One theory has emerged that the two decided to attack their peers because they had been the victims of bullies.

Those shootings occurred before the internet age. Now, students can send anonymous threats to each other via the internet.

“Harassment and bullying are the main reason why kids choose to arm themselves. It’s the reason they join gangs,” Green said. “They do it to protect themselves.”

In response to the Columbine tragedy, many schools and communities, including Secaucus, began to address bullying in a direct and serious way.

As kids have moved online, so too has bullying, forcing schools to adapt.

Secaucus forum

At the Secaucus High School/Middle School forum – which was attended by students in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades and their parents – two law enforcement officers from the U.S. Secret Service offered a sobering view of life online.

A majority of teens, 71 percent, have a social networking profiles through sites such as Facebook, and nearly half, 47 percent, have profiles that can be viewed by any member of the public. Eight percent of teens have even posted their cell phone numbers on the internet.

Because teens are sharing so much personal information online, they risk exposing themselves to harassment. Alternately, they can also expose themselves to prosecution, too, since online harassment and threats are treated by law enforcement the same way as written or verbal threats.

Addressing cyberbullying

The problem of cyberbullying rose to prominence after the 2007 death of Megan Meir. Meir was the 13-year-old Missouri girl who committed suicide after being dumped by a person whom she had been flirting with on MySpace, whom she believed was a 16 year-old-boy. In fact, the “boy” was Lori Drew, the mother of a girl with whom Meir had had an argument.

More recently, parents also have become concerned about “sexting,” in which kids send suggestive texts or photos to each other, often via their cell phones. One student who received the message or image can forward it to others, allowing a message or image meant for just one person to be seen by, possibly, hundreds of people.

(A Pennsylvania prosecutor, for example, threatened to haul two teens, Grace Kelly and Marissa Miller, to court after they took cell phone photos of themselves in their underwear. After some of their classmates received images of the photos, Kelly and Miller were looking at the possibility of facing child pornography charges.)

Not only are parents and school administrators trying to educate themselves about these trends and play catch-up, so are legislators who are increasingly trying to regulate some online behavior. For example New Jersey’s anti-bullying laws include threats made by email, text message, or instant message, according to Special Agent Edwin Donovan of the Secret Service. Also, all New Jersey schools are required to have policies that address cyberbullying.

Bullying in Secaucus

Discussion around harassment in general was reignited in Secaucus last spring when a high school student was dubbed “the class bully” and had a photo and page dedicated to him in the school yearbook.

School board members, especially Tom Troyer, were angered that the “bully” designation was made and included in a forum usually reserved for student achievements.

“I’m more annoyed by the attitude that people took,” Troyer said last week. “There were some people that just kind of shrugged it off like it was nothing. I can tell you, the parents didn’t want it. And it was a unanimous decision by the board to remove it.”

The yearbook had already been printed with the student’s photo and the “bully” tag when school board members learned about it. It was too late for the page to be removed, so it was blacked out instead.

“There are people who try to justify bullying by saying, ‘Well, this is the way it’s always been,’” Green said, “but when adults justify harassment they are contributing to the problem, and contributing to the pain of the victims.”

To help reinforce this point within the Secaucus Public School District, Troyer said there will be an in-service day for teachers on Dec. 8 during which teachers will be briefed on the ramifications of bullying and the district’s anti-harassment policy.

The district’s most recent anti-harassment policy was created in April 2008 and specifically addresses harassment and bullying, both in-person and online.

The policy states: “‘Harassment,’ ‘intimidation,’ or ‘bullying’ means any gesture, written, verbal, or physical act, or any electronic communication, that takes place on school property, at any school-sponsored function, or on a school bus.”

Who gets bullied?

According to Green, bullying, like all forms of harassment, is really about an abuse of power.

“People who harass or bully usually have some power over their victims,” he commented. “They might have more authority, more seniority, more stature in their community – and they abuse that power by harassing someone who lacks that power.”

Victims, he said, often come from a group that is in the minority. Among New Jersey schools these days Green said he sees many immigrant and gay/lesbian children being bullied, whereas yeas ago it may have been black kids. Also, bullying is more common in middle schools than in elementary and high schools.

E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.