Students Combat Bullying Among Peers

Students and bullying. For years, generations, the two have gone hand-in-hand.

Too fat, too skinny, tall or short ? kids can find anything as a reason to pick on someone else. But at Picacho Middle School, kids are the ones turning things around and putting a stop to bullying.

Breaking down barriers among students, Director of the ?Safe School Ambassador Program,? John Linney, had students cross a white line inside Picacho Middle School’s library if the statement applied to them.

“I have seen someone at my school be bullied, threatened, made to feel afraid or intimidated,” Linney said.

Together, all the shoes in the room crossed a line ? silently indicating the students had experienced bullying in one form or another.

“There was never anyone that went alone, so it made me feel good I wasn’t the only one things were happening too,” a student, who crossed the line during the activity, said.

Others said the experience was eye opening.

“It made me feel like I’m not the only one at this school who sees this stuff going on and most of these other kids see it too,” Tommy Montoya, a 7th grade ambassador-in-training, said.

Montoya is one of many ambassadors being empowered with skills to help stop harassment among his peers at school.

“I always see a lot of kids in the hallway like you’d walk by and somebody just calls them a name or tries tripping them,” Montoya said. “I just want to stop that because I feel pretty bad about it.”

Students selected by their teachers include athletes, cheerleaders, musicians ? every crowd is represented ? which is critical to combating harassment from the inside out, Linney said.

“It’s getting younger, it’s getting meaner and harder for adults to see,” Linney said. “The research tells us that adults miss 95% of what goes on between students, so adults can’t do this on their own. To create a safe school we need kids, we need people on the inside.”

In the lunchroom, outside, in-between classes, bullying can go unnoticed, making it easier to escalate, Linney said.

Research shows nearly 160,000 kids across the country stay home from school everyday because of bullying…a statistic Picacho students will now help change.

“No matter which group they fit into they all have the same feelings and all have the same emotions and everybody wants the same thing – to just come to school and be happy,” Ann Gomez, a Picacho Middle School Librarian and ambassador group facilitator, said.

Picacho Middle School Principal Mike Montoya said the program is not a solution, but it is a start to curbing cruelty.

“If you lose one kid at this age or any age to bullying, then we have a problem,” Montoya said. “It’s not just a problem at this school, it’s a problem I don?t care where you’re at. Having kids help us will, I don?t want to say eliminate it, but it will reduce the amount of bullying, the amount of activities the negative activity that’s happening in the schools. If somebody can step in there and say, ?you know that’s not right, lets get you out of that situation and combat that,? I think it’ll definitely change what’s happening in our schools.”

The goal is simple and universal, Linney said.

“We want every kid to feel safe in school and to feel like they belong there,” Linney said.

Fore more information about the Safe School Ambassador Program, click on the ?Hot Button? on the ABC-7 Homepage.