By Tony Dutzik
Eagle-Tribune Writer
SALEM -- It's a part of school life that is about as old as school itself.
Playground arguments. Name-calling. Lunch-money extortion.
Bullying has been around for as long as anyone can remember. And it is alive and well in New Hampshire schools today.
Deborah H. Jordan-Connell, principal of Salem's Woodbury School, calls bullying her school's "number one problem."
"The majority of disciplinary problems are a result of kids name-calling or being unkind to each other," she said.
In the wake of the Columbine High School massacre and other well-publicized incidents of school violence, many educators no longer treat bullying as a rite of passage but a serious problem that needs to be addressed before it gets out of control.
"There are too many examples where people who have allowed that anger to fester to the point where it's beyond their control do unspeakable things," said Salem Assistant School Superintendent John Moody. "It's a serious problem. Only one major incident is more than enough to hurt or kill someone."
At the Woodbury School, students receive training in conflict resolution. They are exposed to adventure education programs and environmental camps designed to increase the bonds of trust between students. And they are encouraged to report incidents of bullying to teachers and school officials.
While it is hard to quantify the impact of these efforts, several students, teachers and administrators said they can see a difference.
"I don't think there's been a fight this year," said Pamela Davies, daughter of Glenn and Roxanne Davies, a seventh-grade student at the school.
More schools could soon be launching programs similar to those in place in Salem. A new law that went into effect on Jan. 1 requires school districts to institute policies to deal with bullying. It also requires teachers and other school staff to report such incidents to school authorities.
But while the new law could cause many districts to take a fresh look at how they treat harassment, school officials face an uphill battle in taming an age-old problem that some said has become even more serious in the last several years.
The changing face of bullying
The increased emphasis on bullying comes at a time when incidents of violence on school property seem to be, if anything, on the decline.
A study released in October by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education found that the percentage of students who had been victims of violent crimes had declined by 10 percent between 1992 and 1998.
Hard numbers on how much bullying goes on in schools are difficult to find. But various studies have estimated that about 15 percent of all students are either bullied regularly or are bullies themselves.
Woodbury Assistant Principal John Cullen said that the school's get-tough policy on violent behavior has led to a marked drop in fighting on school grounds.
"Schools are truly a safer place to be physically," said Woodbury Assistant Principal John Cullen. "But on the verbal part, it's probably worse."
The term "bullying" includes a wide range of behaviors, from teasing and taunting to threats of violence.
The increase in bullying has been blamed on everything from violent and profane popular music and movies to a decrease in parental involvement in education.
And educators agree that, if left unchecked, bullying can do grave damage to students' self-esteem and ability to learn, and possibly lead to violence.
"Oftentimes the verbal violence is more devastating than the physical violence," said Susan Gingras Fitzell, a former teacher at Londonderry High who now runs her own educational consulting firm in Manchester. "Kids become victims of that and become terribly hurt."
The classic image of bullying as the province of tough, middle-school boys is no longer accurate, many administrators said.
For one thing, that images leaves out the kind of serious verbal harassment that can take place in high schools.
"It's more the talking about each other that goes on. Some of it is face to face. But a lot of it is something happens to somebody, and then the groups go after each other," said Deborah T. Martel, dean of students at Salem High. "Girls always tend to talk more. It's not that it's cliques. The groups hang out together and you have to come to the aid of your friend."
Even the venues for bullying behavior have changed. Ms. Jordan-Connell said the Internet -- particularly instant messaging -- has become a new forum for gossip, and sometimes for conflict.
"Two of my friends were fighting on line," said Woodbury student Pamela Davies. "I got into the middle of it and stopped it."
But the largest source of harassment remains the differences among students.
"My bet is that the biggest one is still about individual differences," said Dan Hummel, a guidance counselor who works with seventh-graders at Woodbury. "I'll make myself feel better by putting someone else down."
"Bullying knows no boundaries," said Ms. Jordan-Connell.
Ms. Fitzell, who worked as a classroom teacher for 17 years, including 13 in Londonderry, said students tend to become bullies for two reasons: power and fear.
"Oftentimes we see the kid who is bullying as the bad kid," she said. "What I saw was that many times what they were just trying to do was find a sense of power for themselves because they felt so defeated. Their way of sticking up for themselves was to resort to violence."
Students had their own interpretations.
"They do it to get attention," said Woodbury seventh-grader William Hernandez, son of Maria and Leonardo Hernandez.
"They're probably not all that good in school," said fellow seventh-grader Tom Sweeney, son of Barbara and Tom Sweeney. "They've got to do something to stand out."
Verbal harassment on the rise
Six years before the Columbine High School massacre, Ms. Fitzell said she began noticing a change in the attitudes of her students at Londonderry High.
"Somewhere around 1993, I started to notice kids coming to class more with a fighting mentality," she said. "There seemed to be an increase in fighting in the halls. I saw a lot of verbal threats or harassment; swearing, screaming, yelling."
The change was not limited to high school students, she said.
"I was talking to teachers all over New England who were seeing preschoolers come to school more aggressive and more violent," said Ms. Fitzell. "It was happening at all levels."
Other educators said they, too, have noticed a change.
"Kids are mouthier today," said Ms. Martel. "And there's much less respect."
Ms. Fitzell said her realization led her to do more research into school violence, and eventually to develop a training program to help youngsters resolve their differences.
Now she helps lead a weekly anger management group with students who have run into disciplinary or other problems at Londonderry High.
Londonderry High Community Services Counselor Michael Torch said the group, which is now in its second year, involves eight students at a time, with each session running for eight weeks. Students are referred to the group by guidance counselors, or are given reduced punishments in exchange for participating in the program.
"We deal with a multitude of issues that students bring with them," ranging from family problems to relationship difficulties.
The goal of the group: to teach students how to manage their emotions.
"It's OK to be angry, it's not OK to act out," said Mr. Torch.
New programs take on bullying
The Londonderry program is just one of many local schools have launched in recent years in an effort to prevent school violence.
In the Salem School District, for example, students at all grade levels participate in about a half-dozen programs designed to strengthen the bonds between students, teach respect and conflict-management skills, and deal with incidents of harassment.
Another more recent change is the increased presence of law enforcement officers in local schools.
In Salem, resource officers at the high school and middle school lead programs such as Gang Resistance Education and Training and Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which teach children how to manage conflicts and avoid dangerous situations.
The programs bring young people into close contact with officers, enabling police to get more information about conflicts within the schools, said Lt. Robert Larsen, head of the Services Bureau of the Salem Police.
"If you're interacting, hopefully you're going to know about some of these potential problems and try to deal with them at that level," he said.
Moreover, Lt. Larsen said school officials and Salem police meet every two weeks to discuss issues that might arise in the schools.
Teachers and school staff in Salem have also taken a look at their own behavior to ensure that they are setting a proper example for their students.
"If we want respect from children, we have to be respectful," said Salem Superintendent Dr. Henry E. LaBranche.
With guidance counselors, school resource officers and teachers all sensitized to issues of harassment and bullying, Ms. Martel said school administrators tend to hear about more problems before they escalate.
"We have more systems in place to do that: a third dean (of students at the high school), the resource officer, aides in the cafeteria. Those are ears out there that hear all sorts of things," she said.
"Where we know about it, we call the kids in. We do a mediation between the main players. If it's serious enough, we ask a resource officer to sit in on it," Ms. Martel added. "We try to nip it in the bud before it escalates into anything bigger."
But Ms. Martel and others acknowledged that teachers and administrators do not become aware of every problem that exists. And it is the students, often victims of bullying, who internalize their feelings and don't talk about them, that can pose the greatest risk.
"My biggest concern is for those students who might be quiet and say nothing," she said. "You've got to hope that something will come up that you can talk to them."
"Sometime students are afraid," said Woodbury seventh-grader Sam Courcy, daughter of Leo and Connie Courcy.
"They're afraid that other kids will make fun of you, maybe because that kid is your friend," said William Hernandez.
But the students said most of their peers feel comfortable bringing incidents of bullying to teachers or guidance counselors.
"It probably helps some kids because they get to know (guidance counselor) Dan (Hummel) pretty well," said Tom Sweeney.
"Yeah, 'cause we see Dan all over the place," said Pamela Davies.
Law could force change
Getting teachers to feel more comfortable raising issues of harassment is one of the purposes of the new state law.
"It was to give clear direction and some protection to school officials who are trying to control what could turn into a more violent situation," said Sen. Sylvia B. Larsen, D-Concord, who cosponsored the bill.
Pelham is one of the only Southern New Hampshire school districts that has thus far adopted a bullying policy to comply with the new law. School boards in Salem, Windham, Hampstead, Timberlane and Londonderry have introduced proposed policies, which are expected to be adopted soon.
Those districts could receive some help from the state Department of Education, which gives out minigrants intended to help school districts develop anti-bullying programs.
Mr. Moody said the Salem schools have received approximately $150,000 in grants over the past half-decade from a variety of sources to implement character education and anti-violence programs, and that the school district has invested about half that much of its own money -- not including the costs of adding additional guidance counselors.
Merry Fortier, who runs the state's Safe and Drug-Free Schools grant program, said the program gives out about $2 million to school districts for drug and violence prevention efforts.
But Ms. Fitzell said some schools, torn by conflicting priorities, aren't willing or able to devote the time or resources needed to address violence prevention.
"Schools have a couple of tremendous obstacles," she said. "One of them is funding. They're given a mandate to do something about a problem but not given funding to do anything."
Ms. Fortier agreed that not all districts in the state have moved as aggressively as Salem to implement violence prevention efforts. Funding is available, she said, but many districts have not yet figured out how to incorporate anti-bullying programs into their classrooms.
"The tension is very real. It's there in places that are seeing this as an add-on" to regular classroom instruction, she said. "I think this is may be the first time they're really going to be making the connection."
Ms. Fortier said it is too early to tell whether the types of programs being run in districts like Salem are having a measurable effect on bullying and school violence. With the new state law, however, districts will have little choice but to confront the problem.
"These are behaviors that absolutely detract from student achievement," said Ms. Fortier. "There's a growing sentiment that we need to pay attention to this and why it's happening."