By Megan Griffith
This is in response to Chance Crail and Terry Lane”s articles. I understand that there are different beliefs on this subject, but my opinion is that something needs to be done about the bullying at Clear Lake High School.
I am a sophomore at CLHS. Last year, as a freshman, I witnessed other freshmen getting “trash-canned” and students getting beaten up when they said the wrong thing or wore the wrong outfit. This year I decided I was going to join Chance and many others in this struggle to help make my school a better place.
I do understand that many administrators, teachers and parents took part in similar traditions when they were in high school so they tolerate this type of behavior now ? but that does not mean it”s right. Being a strong supporter of student rights, I strongly disagree with many of the traditions at Clear Lake High School.
One example of these traditions is online bullying, also called cyberbullying, where students send threatening or insulting e-mails, MySpace messages or texts. There is even a Facebook page set up simply to “hate freshmen,” which many of the students at CLHS are fans of ? some of my friends included. There are currently over 100,000 subscribers to that page alone. If this was a page hating black students or Jewish students, or gay students, people would be outraged. If groups of students were only “trash-canning” certain ethnic or religious groups, they would be hate crimes. These assaults are against the law and should be against school rules.
School is hard enough, especially as a freshman, without having to suffer degrading comments, ridicule, verbal and physical assaults and disrespect. It needs to change. Our school can change. We need to make our school a safe place where students aren”t afraid to walk onto the campus.
The best solution that my peers and I could come up with to this problem was to work with the administration and introduce the implementation of a positive behavioral program such as Challenge Day (http://www.challengeday.org/) which includes workshops intended to result in more friendly environments and safer schools.
We have created a Challenge Day Club in hopes of raising enough money for the program to come to our school. If you would like to contact us or would like more information you can visit the club”s new Web site (http://www.schoolscanchange.com/).
Megan Griffith
Lakeport
