The Importance Of Cyberbullying In Schools

It is Tina’s first day of freshman year. She walks into her first class and captures the attention of a few upperclassmen guys. She gradually becomes friends with them throughout the year and never notices the other girls glaring at her because of their stone cold jealousy. One day, during school, Tina gets on her Instagram page and sees notifications that a few girls have commented on her pictures. She eagerly clicks on the pictures assuming the comments will be heartening and upbeat and immediately gasps at the monstrosity of the comments, especially since they are from her only friends at school. Immediately she feels so embarrassed and hurt that she cannot handle the situation. The next day, the school has a moment of silence for the freshman

Are schools doing enough about cyberbullying?

School policies being in place could help reduce the amount of cyberbullying at school. They would enforce structure and a set of guidelines that every student and teacher should follow. Federal laws also exist to help aid school policies. Wendy J. Murphy, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law in Boston, a victims’ rights advocate and television legal analyst, agrees that when someone starts to include the law or the rights of people, people start to pay attention: “Schools should connect their disciplinary codes to civil rights laws." The school policies help to improve the student 's and teacher’s behavior when they know what the consequences would be if they broke a rule that is backed up by a federal law. School policies also help to stop

Training teachers about cyberbullying and how to handle it appropriately when it occurs would help to reduce cyberbullying in schools because there would be more action being involved to stop it. Nancy Willard, an executive director of the center for safe and responsible use of the internet, agrees that people have to understand the situation before making any rational decisions and states: “School officials should establish a process to review situations involving cyberbullying incidents or cyber threats” (190). Training would therefore allow teachers and staff the information needed to confront any confrontation of cyberbullying or cyber threats. Sameer Hinduja, an assistant professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University, and Justin Patchin, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Clair, agree that having classes on cyberbullying can actually make students and teachers perceive cyberbullying and the outcome of the victims more clearly: “Several nonprofit organizations have also developed curricula that a school can utilize to educate staff and students about the nature and consequences of cyberbullying.” Obtaining knowledge about what is in the curricula would help to diminish the amount of cyberbullying at school because the bullies now know that everyone at their school understands what