Bullying Prevention Month: Miami Schools Chief Sees Progress

MIAMI, FL — Having recently celebrated his tenth anniversary as chief of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Alberto Carvalho told Patch he has seen progress in the way educators deal with the problem of bullying in schools during his tenure.

"We’ve seen greater awareness to the issue of bullying across the district, and we’ve reacted by intensifying training on the identification and the addressing of those who are the bullies themselves, as well as the recognition of the victims of bullying," Carvalho told Patch in an exclusive interview.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month and Carvalho said that Miami-Dade schools have created so-called safe places for the victims of bullying to share their experiences with trained personnel.

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"We have partnered with many organizations over the past 10 years," he said, pointing to Sandy Hook Promise and the Anti-Defamation League among others.

Watch as Carvalho discusses anti-bullying efforts in Miami-Dade:

Such partnerships have been key to helping educators identify the various forms of bullying: "Who it impacts, what it looks like, what it sounds like, the manifestation, the behavior," the superintendent explained.

In addition to raising awareness of the problem, Carvalho said that the district has also focused on creating support systems for victims of bullying that include guarantees of safety and security while also making strides in how educators deal with bullies.

But bullying has taken on new forms in the past decade.

"I think with the advent of social media, obviously we’ve seen bullying become more diversified," Carvalho shared. "It’s taken many shapes. It’s taken many shades. It’s taken a digital format that sometimes is harder to track."

He said that district officials continuously troll for "menacing language or threatening language" that unfairly attacks any group of people on the basis of race, religion, sexual identify, gender preference or any characteristic.

Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Edwin Lopez tells Patch that his school resource officers are trained to recognize the signs of bullying, no matter what form it takes.

"Our school resource officers are trained to identify students who may be showing signs of bullying, either victims or offenders," he explained. "We make sure that we work with school staff and administrators and counselors in order to curb that behavior."

He said that the officers try to catch bullying behavior as early as possible.

"We know that even at an early age behavior starts getting formed," Lopez said. "So we make sure to intervene at an early age, so we don’t have potential issues at the middle school or high school level."

He added that his officers wear a number of different hats.

"The school resource officer is not only a police officer at the school site. Many of them serve roles as mothers, as fathers, as mentors, as coaches, as counselors," Lopez said. "They’re actively involved tackling those issues with the school administration, with the staff and the counselors to make sure that the student receives responses of different personnel in order to correct the behavior."

National Bullying Prevention Month is observed annually during October to bring attention to the problem and involve people in Miami-Dade County and nationwide in a conversation on how to create a world safe from bullying.

Once viewed as a childhood “rite of passage” that toughened kids to handle the pressures of adulthood, bullying and its more insidious digital twin, cyberbullying, is seen by many experts as a major public health issue — on par with heart disease, cancer and diabetes — with devastating and often long-term effects like the loss of self-esteem, heightened anxiety and depression.

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story to tell about bullying or cyberbullying, a suggestion about how to stem it or an event to publicize? Comment at the end of the story, or email Paul.Scicchitano@Patch.com and copy bullies@patch.com. You can post Bullying Prevention Month and many other events right on Patch.

Statistics vary, but an aggregate of 80 different studies on bullying suggests one in five American students between 12 and 18 is bullied at some point during their middle or high school years. Traditional bullying — name calling, public humiliation, isolation, physical violence and that sort of thing — occurs most often, with 35 percent of kids reporting they’ve been targeted in one of those ways. The studies cited by the PACER Center, which established National Bullying Prevention Month, show that 15 percent of kids surveyed report being cyberbullied.

And though it occurs less often, cyberbullying — which has resulted in a disturbing string of suicides by adolescents and teenagers — is especially hard to stop. While experts say most cyberbullied kids don’t kill themselves, the long-tailed internet makes a taunt live longer than one flung on the schoolyard. Kids can escape traditional bullying in the safety of their homes, but because social media is so intertwined with how kids communicate, they never really escape it.

READ: Bullied To Death: When Kids Kill With Words

And because cyberbullies have the stealth of anonymity, “empathy tends to fade to zero,” NoBully.org founder Nicholas Carlisle told Patch.

He was knocked around 40 or so years ago as an awkward 12-year-old. The torment persisted through high school, but as tough as it was, his experience was markedly different from the torture kids endure today, he says — and it’s not just that he was attacked in a physical as opposed to online space.

“Online, you can’t see the whites of their eyes,” Carlisle said. “If you can see someone, that’s often a break upon people’s aggression — not always, but it does seem to have some break upon crossing the line.”

The full consequences of bullying on the brain aren’t fully understood, but kids who are targeted by bullies in childhood and adolescence are at increased risk for psychological problems that can stretch into adulthood, according to experts. In the moment, bullied kids may be unable to sleep or suffer a range of stomach issues and headaches. Later on, they’re at risk for depression, anxiety, and alcohol and drug use.

OCT. 24 UNITY DAY

Among the marquee National Bullying Prevention Month activities is Unity Day, observed on Wednesday, Oct. 24, when everyone is encouraged to wear and show orange to send a message that no child should ever experience bullying.

“Orange provides a powerful, visually compelling expression of solidarity,” Paula Goldberg, the executive director of the PACER Center, said in a statement. “Whether it’s hundreds of individuals at a school wearing orange, store owners offering orange products or a community changing a landmark to orange, the vibrant statement becomes a conversation starter, sending the supportive, universal message that bullying is never acceptable behavior.”

Here’s more about Unity Day:

THE BULLY MENACE: WHAT’S AHEAD

During October and beyond, several experts have agreed to answer readers’ questions about bullying, ranging from how to keep their kids from becoming targets to what to do if their kids are the bullies. We’ll also delve into some of the issues surrounding bullying —

Take a look back at some of the stories in our series:

• America’s Shameful Truth About School Shooters And Bullying
• They All Failed Changed Child: Malden Bullying Detailed
• Bullies, Their Targets The Same In A Surprising Number Of Cases
• ‘Everyday, I Wear Your Words,’ Teen Tells Bullies In Video
• Teen’s ‘I Wear Your Words’ Video Inspires Nashville Songwriters
• Bullying Of Mallory Grossman, 12, Spelled Out In Wrongful Death Lawsuit
• Poetry Teacher Helps Bullied Kids Open Their Tortured Minds
• Why These Kindergartners Start Each Day With A Simple Handshake

If you have a question or want to share your story, please email bullies@patch.com.

Miami-Dade Schools Chief Alberto M. Carvalho photo by Paul Scicchitano