Concerns About Cyber Bullying Raised (VIDEO)

Concerns about cyber bullying at the Felix Festa Middle School prompted parent Denise Weiss to recently address the school board. She spoke about middle school student using social media for cyber bullying. Clarkstown North High School seniors Jolie Denberg and Amanda Borelli followed up her remarks and spoke about the necessity to add anti-bullying information to the health curriculum. 

Weiss said 11 to 14 year olds can be extremely unkind to each other.

Weiss, who has a sixth grader, said recent incidents of anonymous bullying attacking one of her daughter’s classmates, led her to contact school district and Festa administrators.  She had found the remarks offensive but was pleased with the response.

“The difference is that when this bullying is going on at Festa now the administrators rallied, the principals are in the lunch room immediately talking to the kids at the lunch tables,” Weiss said.   

She pointed out that middle school students are tech savvy and she hopes that the attention given to the problem will continue. Weiss said it was critical that parents, administrators, law enforcement, the community and students emphasize that cyber bullying will not be tolerated.

Denberg and Borelli have been studying cyber-bulling and had some recommendations for the board. Denberg spoke about cyber bullying as being a “huge problem in this district and America” and said some of the reasons for its proliferation are that people are uneducated about it and that it has increased along with the rapid growth of social media.  She said students might not be aware of its impact and its harmfulness.

“We think that’s because in the health curriculum right now bullying is not exactly a unit,” explained Denberg. “Some teachers, we spoke to one teacher (who) puts it in one day and he talks about it but the majority of the teachers don’t even talk about it. Cyber-bullying specifically is what’s becoming worse and worse and we’d like to add it to the curriculum and put a unit in health.” 

She said she and Borelli think adding it as a unit in the health curriculum at the middle and high school levels would help develop an awareness and understanding of the dangers of cyber bullying.

“So in the middle school kids will be educated at a younger age about Internet safety and the dangers of cyber bullying,” Denberg said.