Cyberbullying in Schools

Schools (K-12) should definitely have very strict rules and punishments for inappropriate social media use, such as cyberbullying. It is something that is completely inappropriate and one of the worst kind of bullying. Cyberbullying allows people to say things that they do not have the courage to ever say to someone’s face. Whether it is because they are to afraid to say it or they know how wrong it is, through cyberbullying it still happens.

My high school had a policy on cyberbullying. I only know this because it was in our handbook. I went to a very small high school where everyone knew each other very well so this problem never really occurred. However, the policy was still there in case they ever had to take action.

I feel as if you are having problems at home then they should be fixed at home. However, if it spills over into schools it will, of course, get a lot worse. I think if this were to happen it is an extra push to fix things at home because if things are not corrected in the household, things will only get worse at school. With this kind of situation you can only take it one step at a time.

            I do not know of the Sacred Heart policy on cyberbullying but I would assume it would involve the same things: taking action, interfering the situation and disciplining those who need to be. I recently spoke to a Residence Assistant about cyberbullying and she gave me an example she had last year on her floor. She said that two female roommates had gotten into a large fight over a boy and the one had moved into a different room. After she moved out, the girl who started the fight continued it on Facebook. The girl would call her ex-roommate a whore and a slut and talked about how many guys the other girl had slept with at SHU, even when this information was false. Although it was not true, it was still being spread on social media sites. When the girl finally went to my friend, the RA, she had to take all the steps in writing the girl up and having her meet with the people higher up than herself. She also had to have a meeting with the girl. The girl who had been doing it denied it and then the RA brought everything up on a computer screen. The girl was written up, put on probation and kicked off campus during the weekends for a month.

            My friend who dealt with this case said that “it sucks” when I asked her how she felt about cyberbullying. She said that she doesn’t see it that often because we are in college and we are older but when it does occur it gets vicious.