Cyberbullying Realities and Resources

Image by paul.klintworth via Flickr

Cyberbullying is a distressing online trend and unfortunately, our District community is not immune to its reach. In addition to providing good news and positive information about the District, we feel it's also important to give our community relevant resources on problem areas.

It is my hope you will take some time and watch the video below and then become familiar with what cyberbullying is, the dangerous effects, and ways to stop it.



Resources
Here is some helpful information from Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online (pg. 20 of PDF):

"Cyberbullying is bullying or harassment that happens online. It can happen in an email, a text
message, an online game, or comments on a social networking site. It might involve rumors or images posted on someone’s profile or passed around for others to see, or creating a group or page to make a person feel left out.

"Talk to your kids about bullying. Tell your kids that they can’t hide behind the words they type and the images they post. Hurtful messages not only make the target feel bad, but they also make the sender look bad—and sometimes can bring scorn from peers and punishment from authorities.

"Ask your kids to let you know if an online message or image makes them feel threatened or hurt. If you fear for your child’s safety, contact the police.

• Read the comments. Cyberbullying often involves mean-spirited comments. Check out your kid’s page from time to time to see what you find.
• Don’t react. If your child is targeted by a cyberbully, tell them not to respond. Bullies usually are looking for a reaction from their target. Instead, encourage your child to work with you to save the evidence and talk to you about it. If the bullying persists, share the record with school officials or local law enforcement.
• Protect their profile. If your child finds a profile that was created or altered without his or her permission, contact the company that runs the site to have it taken down.
• Block or delete the bully. If the bullying involves instant messaging or another online service that requires a “friends” or “buddy” list, delete the bully from the lists or block their user name or email address.
• Help stop cyberbullying. If your child sees cyberbullying happening to someone else, encourage him or her to try to stop it by not engaging or forwarding anything and by telling the bully to stop. Researchers say that bullying usually stops pretty quickly when peers intervene on behalf of the victim. One way to help stop bullying online is to report it to the site or network where you see it.
  
• Recognize the signs of a cyberbully. Could your kid be the bully? Look for signs of bullying behavior, such as creating mean images of another kid.
  
• Keep in mind that you are a model for your children. Kids learn from adults’ gossip and other unkind behavior."

Related articles by Zemanta

• Teen Tortured by Cyberbullies Hangs Herself (abcnews.go.com)
• What parents can do about cyberbullying (ncpc.org)
• Teen Arrested for Creating Website to Bully Other Teen (wired.com)

Legacy HS students raise funds and awareness for breast cancer screenings

Recently, Legacy High School students in Dena Schimming's Teen Leadership II class presented a $30,000 donation check to representatives from the Moncrief Cancer Resources at UT Southwestern Medical Center for the Mobile Mammography Screening unit. The funds were raised during the campus's Pink Fest, a series of fundraisers and breast cancer awareness programs in October of 2009.

Here's a recap in the latest MISD Minutes series:


Additional details:
The LHS 2009 Pink Fest included an eight-hour walkathon. They chose eight hours because 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

The UT Southwestern Medical Center's Mobile Mammography Screening unit is the only digital mammography unit in a mobile environment available in Dallas and the southwest U.S.

Legacy High School's Pink Fest began in 2007. The efforts included $12,000 alone in Pink Fest t-shirt sales alone.

See the related Rider Online article: Pink Fest Raises Funds for Cancer.

Coat drive nets over 100 donations

What started early this week as a simple request from District superintendent, Dr. Morrison to put together a staff-wide coat drive in light of the cold weather turned into something really great for the Council PTA Clothes Closet.

The request was simple, campuses and departments were asked to designate an area for coat collections and the MISD staff members were asked to bring in gently-used coats to be given to the Clothes Closet. With record-level cold temperatures it was pretty easy to see the need.

Thanks to the quick and thoughtful response from campus and department staff, we were able to provide over 100 coats and jackets to the Clothes Closet.

The MISD PTA Clothes Closet provides clothing items to students in need. Students are referred (via voucher) by school staff. Campus Administrators, Teachers, Nurses, Counselors, and PTA Executive Board Members may present a Clothes Closet Voucher to any student in the MISD needing the opportunity to visit the Clothes Closet. Donations to the Clothes Closet come from MISD schools, the community and local businesses.

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Special thanks to the MISD Distribution Center staff for their flexibility in adjusting their schedules to provide a truck for pick-up and delivery of donated coats.

Winter weather Transportation and school-closing decisions

[updated December 4, 2013] What happens in Mansfield ISD when temperatures drop and our area has inclement winter weather?

I checked with our leadership team and the Transportation department to help explain some of the procedures, considerations, and decision-making during winter weather events. Here is what I found out:

1. At or before 4:00 a.m. a decision is made to deploy the Transportation weather team staff.
2. Before 4:30 a.m.., the weather team visually inspects various areas across the district of streets for icy, wet, or dry roads along with monitoring the weather information channels.
3. The weather team contacts the Director of Transportation with their road information.
4. Road conditions are analyzed along with other related information available from other school districts.
5. If roads are questionable, the Superintendent is contacted after 4:30 a.m. (but before 5:00 a.m.) to discuss findings and recommendations.
6. The Superintendent makes a decision by 5:00 a.m. whether or not to close schools.
7. We use our standard communication channels if any changes to the district schedule require adjustment including the District homepage, weather info webpage, our phone and e-mail notification system, DFW radio and TV news outlets, and via the district's Twitter profile, @mansfieldisd.

Other considerations and notable information

• Many area school districts' transportation directors have a local phone network so they can stay in communication and provide insight to what is happening road-wise with each other.

• How does weather forecasting play a part in the decision-making process? While the weather team reports actual conditions, what is expected to happen weather-wise is just as important to the decision process.

• What about early dismissals? If winter weather conditions worsen during the school day, we determine if an early release is needed to get the students home sooner and bus drivers back to the bus barn safely prior to darkness. We try to make that decision prior to 10:00 a.m. in order to adequately coordinate the dismissal process. As soon as it is determined to dismiss early, the dismissal times for each grade level will be posted immediately on the District's website.
• How many different bus routes run every day? Each of our MISD buses run three or four schools. We run 165 buses, including Special Needs, but with three bell schedules, that is approximately 660 individual bus trips each morning and then again each afternoon.

We hope this helps provide a little insight into this process.

Back in the saddle for 2010

Well, I did it again. I got out of the habit of writing regular blog posts for the MISD community and got lulled into a 48 day gap here on the blog. (Actually it was really only 32 days since 16 of those days were over the holiday, but that's really no excuse.)

The last time he had a large break in the posts, we provided a post on eduspeak which was pretty fun and hopefully helpful. This time, however, I'm just going to apologize for being a stranger and move on. (photo credit: Gexydaf)

It has been great to see all of the comments on the proposed orchestra program. We are still in the information-gathering mode for that and nothing new to share at this time. I am encouraged by all of the fans and postings being shared on our District Facebook page and a few campuses that are trying out the social network for their school communities.

There are a few post ideas bouncing around that I'll be writing in the coming days and weeks, but I'd like to hear from you. Is there anything you'd like covered in this District blog? Have you heard any rumors you'd like investigated? The comments are yours.