LITTLE ROCK — Even though the Little Rock School District has a policy against bullying, a group of Little Rock advocates said it will take a long-term, broadbased community effort to curb what it sees as rampant harassment and bullying in Little Rock schools.
More than two months after the school district held a press conference to discuss the problems illustrated in a 2007-08 study - which showed students in five Little Rock schools reported sexual harassment, bullying and a lack of attention from district officials and staff - a collection of parents, teachers andneighborhood advocates met Sunday afternoon to brainstorm its own ways to curb behavior that, according to the study, disproportionately involved black students tormenting Hispanic students.
In a wide-ranging dialogue, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen, who is also a minister, said that thedistrict’s anti-bullying policy hasn’t prevented the “realities” of widespread bullying and harassment, and that it’s up to the community to take action.
“I’m old enough and smart enough to know that a policy is not a plan,” Griffen said, referring to the district’s anti-bullying policy. “[ Teachers here] have talked about the need to infuse character into the school setting... So people need to understand the conduct standard that is expected.”
Speaking before Griffen was Terry Richard-Trevino, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock sociology profes-sor and president of the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Richard-Trevino wrote the study, “Operation Intercept,” that prompted the school district’s press conference earlier this year. The study said that complaints of bullying and harassment from students, as well as their parents, were often met by indifference or inattention by school teachers, security staff members and administrators.
A copy of the study was not available Sunday, nor was a copy of the district’s harassment policies.
Richard-Trevino said that at Hall High School, one of the five schools in his study, students say Hispanic gangs have been growing to “defend” themselves fromgroups of black students and, more specifically, some of the school’s black gangs.
“[Elementary administrators at Chico, Wakefield and Terry elementary schools] were right on top of it... Ifthey knew about, they’d be engaging,” Richard-Trevino said.“At Henderson and Hall... it was more likely reports would be ignored... they were blown off and nothing would happen to the perpetrators[of bullying].”
The 2-hour long, freeflowing conversation between Griffen, Richard-Trevino and 50 guests discussed the cultural, racial and social causes of the bullying, and most in attendance agreed there was plenty of blame to go around.
After saying that teachers were at the front line of combating negative, if not violent, behavior in the classroom, state Sen. Joyce Elliott volunteered to help form what Griffen dubbed an “action group” that will bring teachers and parents together in developing short-term solutions as well as long-term engagement efforts to minimize a problem as ubiquitous as the language used to describe it.
“Teachers are the people who project this notion of what the norm ought to be in a school,” Griffen said, “for better or worse.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/03/2012