Georgia
Sherman is one of nearly six million teens involved in bullying—as either a
bully or a target of bullying—in the U.S. each year, according to the National
Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center. This common act of violence is often
overlooked, but as the new-age trend of cyberbullying continues to increase,
several states have signed cyberbullying bills into law, according to
news.discovery.com.
A bill that would have added cyberbullying to the state’s
anti-bullying laws of Oklahoma failed to pass the Oklahoma House of
Representatives in 2011, according to newsok.com. While Oklahoma does not
currently have any state cyberbullying laws, states such as Arkansas, Louisiana
and California are just three of 14 U.S. states to have a bullying law that includes
cyberbullying, according to www.cyberbullying.us.
Since the development of MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter,
cyberbullying has drastically increased. Students who spend more than 3 hours
per school day on social networks were said to be 110 percent more likely to be
a victim of cyberbullying, according to the 2012 bullying statistics from
Covenant Eyes Internet Accountability and Filtering.
Girls are more likely to be involved in cyberbullying
than boys, according to bullystatistics.org. Midwest City High School senior
Georgia Sherman knows just how cruel teens can be.
“Girls are more prone to be bullies over boys because
boys are physical and can get over it, but girls are mean and hold grudges.
I’ve seen a lot of girls change schools just because of bullying,” Sherman
said.
Midwest City High School Assistant Principal Daryla Combs
feels that Facebook and Twitter have allowed students to be more open about
being mean. Her school has created new strategies to try to prevent bullying.
“We’ve identified through surveys some of our dangerous
areas, so we’ve installed more cameras in stairwells and put more teachers in
hallways in some of those hot spots,” Combs said.
Jamie Butler, a counselor at Midwest City High School,
has noticed the growing epidemic of school bullying due to technology and is
working towards creating a program to change mean behavior.
“Students are aware that they’re not supposed to bully. We
touch on it every chance we get, but with all the technology, bullying has
really blown up…we’ve talked about creating a kindness program to promote being
kind, and hopefully it would help offset any bullying,” Butler said.
Midwest
City High School has a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and is working towards
preventing acts of school violence to protect the students and to help create a
safe environment. While they are on the right track to finding ways to stop
bullying, hopefully more schools and states will recognize this problem as a
major issue and will work towards implementing more laws nationwide to put a
stop to cyberbullying.
Georgia Sherman, Jamie Butler, and Daryla Combs
discuss the bullying epidemic at Midwest City High
School in Midwest City, Okla., on April 27, 2012.
