The top of his underpants was showing when the fourth grader went on the playground. A bigger fifth grader first humiliated him with words, then moved in to give him a wedgie.
Fourth and fifth graders in the Steps to Respect program sat in a circle with high school students and young adults as everybody told what they would do in such a real-life situation.
“Report him” said one eager boy.
“Why?” asked teacher Miranda Ramos.
The boy wasn”t sure.
“It”s dangerous,” said a girl.
Teacher Ramos nodded this is correct.
Students are taught to first resist bullying, and report it in several circumstances, especially when someone is threatened with injury.
Two dozen highschoolers have been involved in the four-day a week program at Dana Gray, which is part of the Kudos program offered by the Mendocino Coast Recreation & Park District.
Helping out is a little payback for high school senior Carter Crowell who benefited from a Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program when he was at Dana Gray and his own siblings were off at college.
Crowell has hopes the positive programs can help with what continues to be a serious problem.
“It depends on who you hang out with [at the high school]. There are some groups where they bully their own friends.”
The local BBBS closed its doors last year and there was no mentoring program at Dana Gray last year. This is the first full year for Steps to Respect, which follows the positive, anti-bullying program used at Dana Gray and Fort Bragg Middle School.
The high school students were obviously celebrities to the Dana Gray students, who let go with high pitched laughs when the older students made self-effacing jokes.
Bullying, which has been with mankind since the caves, is still a real problem in Fort Bragg schools.
Its very nature makes it difficult to discuss. Some parents were unhappy with the positive talk about bullying from school administrators in a previous story by this reporter. But they would not lend their names, as they could reflect on their children.
Dana Gray Principal Lupe Merritt has been trying unsuccessfully to get parents on a panel set up to deal with the problem of bullying by instilling positive behavior.
Administrators don”t want to dwell on problems and not just for the usual reason that it makes them look bad. The entire modern strategy of dealing with bullying is with the carrot of positive rewards and behavior modeling, not the stick of detention or suspensions. Those are punishments as available to bullies as ever, administrators say.
The hope is that relentless focus on the positive will prevent these problems from happening in the first place, but nobody denies the reality of bullying.
“It”s something that used to be considered part of growing up, kids being kids,” said Ramos. But Ramos, who was always short, red-haired with glasses in school, is glad that the bullying she often endured is much less socially acceptable and being dealt with out in the open now.
On the way to Dana Gray to observe the Steps to Respect Program in action, this reporter passed the middle school. A much larger brown-haired boy aimed a drop kick at a smaller blond boy, then chased close behind him away from the front of the school and down the street. Other students watched, betraying no emotion.
Bullying?
It”s often hard to tell with kids the difference between horseplay and bully terror.
“Yes, it is a real problem our schools our facing,” said Crowell. “But with programs like this one, I believe the problem will decline over the years.”
Ramos said Dana Gray students love the high school kids and young adults. Highschoolers have fun with the helping, too.
Ninth grader Mercury Solano first came to get a few volunteer hours.
“And it was something that would look good on my college resume,” Solano said.
But he loves working with the kids. Ramos said Solano rarely misses working with the students after school, which happens four days per week.
“Students at the high school are more mature, of course, and bullying is different. It”s more likely to be cyber bullying,” said high school senior Kiabeth Renteria.
The 15 Dana Gray students (a smaller crowd than usual because Monday was a half-day) broke into three groups with the older students and adults to play games called “if you knew me you would know” something good, something bad that happened to me.
Crowell made the kids laugh by saying if they knew him, they would know he was really bad at dodgeball. They already knew that well, as each gathering ends in a vigorous game in the gym, often dodgeball.
Crowell said sometimes some really bad news comes from kids.
“I remember one student told us that his family had gotten so poor they had to sell their dog, because they couldn”t afford to feed it anymore.”
Revelations about bulling and more come out in an environment where they get to be equals with older kids.
When 20-year old aide Gonzalo Macias told the students he liked to play soccer, they informed him they knew he was good at soccer.
Renteria revealed that she went to school even on senior skip day because she secretly loves school. This creates a moment of amazement from several students. One tiny girl indicates she too likes school.
Games are controlled; Ramos always picks the teams.
“Much to the chagrin of the kids,” she said. But picking teams can be part of the dominating that leads to bullying. Ramos combines kids who normally wouldn”t team up.
Five years ago, the middle school adopted the PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support) program. Statistics used to measure bullying show a downward turn over the past five years. Dana Gray Elementary implemented the program three years ago and has yet to show improvement in its numbers.
The relentless positive thinking clearly bugs some parents, who face real problems. For example, the curriculum deliberately dodges the word “bullying.”
Ramos has the newspeak title “asset enrichment instructor” but the fast-paced woman clearly knows the old-fashioned way to corral youngsters at the end of a full day of school.
A mother of several school age kids herself, Ramos says children will encounter bullying eventually.
“The key is resilience, to build resilience in the child at home and at school, so they will come through it.”
