She goes home every day and the first thing she does when she gets there is reach for her laptop.  It’s not because she wants a head start on her homework. It’s really because she’s terrified to see what people are saying about her today. Ugly.  Stupid. Slut.

       According to the Cyber bullying Research Center, one in five middle-school students has been affected by cyber bullying, which is defined as the use of cell phones, internet, social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, e-mail, and chat rooms to harass, threaten, or intimidate someone.

     If this is such a prevalent problem among students then why is so little being done to protect students from such behavior.  Hanging a poster in a hallway about be cautious about what we post online is not enough.  Having a bully box is not enough.  Having an administration who actively seeks out cyber-bullies and punishes them appropriately is the only way to prevent a cycle of destruction.

 According to Bullyingstatistics .org, around half of teens in Harford County have been the victims of cyber bullying. One in ten teens have embarrassing or damaging photos taken of themselves without their permission, usually taken by cell phone cameras. About one in five teens have posted or sent sexually suggestive or nude pictures of themselves to others.

       Often, school district discipline codes say little about educators’ authority over student cell phones, home computers, and off-campus speech. Reluctant to assert an authority they are not sure they have, educators can appear indifferent to parents and students who are frantic with worry.  Why? Are the concerned   about the legality of actions?  Are they worried about offending parents?  Are they anxious about opening pandora’s box of discipline related issues that stem from off campus behavior?   Perhaps they should be more concerned about keeping kids safe—preventing them from taking drastic actions to end the torture they face every day.

   According to the Anti-Defamation League, although 44 states have bullying statutes, fewer than half offer guidance about whether schools may intervene in bullying involving “electronic communication,” which almost always occurs outside of school and most severely on weekends, when children have more free time to socialize online.

     Brandon Schuler, an 11th grade student at Perryville High School, committed suicide due to bullying about two and a half months ago. “Brandon was my hunting buddy,” says David Smith, a close friend to Schuler. “He shot himself with his own gun he hunted with.”

    Had Schuler’s administration gotten involved, David Smith would be attending his graduation, not his funeral.