Arizona Teen Demands Schools Proactively End Bullying They'll Face a Lawsuit

by Boo Jarchow

A 15-year-old activist in Arizona notified officials at every school in the state that bullying of lesbian and gay students must end, or they will face a lawsuit.

Caleb Laieski sent a letter via email to over 5,000 school administrators, city council members and lawmakers for the state demanding better strategies to combat discrimination, according to AZCentral.com.

In early December 2010, Laieski sent the letters stating that LGBT youth experience more bullying than their heterosexual peers, and offered a reference list of organizations and experts to officials. The letters also alerted school officials that policies expressly banning harassment of gays and lesbians by students, teachers and administrators must be put in place, and enforced, or they will face "legal ramifications."

"This is more not to threaten a lawsuit but to put resources out there," said Laieski. "But if they don't want to cooperate, there's going to be consequences."

Laieski has experience as an activist since founding Gays and Lesbians United Against Discrimination two years ago, when he was just 13. The organization was formed to help support the LGBT community locally and nationally, "because of the amount of discrimination, hate speech, and experience of a friend committing suicide and many others attempting to work from a legislative perspective to deter or prevent these issues by passing legislation to patch these issues." He added that "after more interaction, experience, and involvement, I learned that we need to focus on the more basic issue that kept these statistics of suicide, homelessness, rejection, drug and alcohol use, etc. [so high]."

At the time of the organization's founding, Laieski successfully spurred a change in his school district's policy, which brought national media attention to the group.

Laieski, a former Willow Canyon High School student, was shoved into lockers and received text messages filled with anti-gay slurs, and he said he felt officials in the district should have done more to end it.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona offered to represent Laieski in a possible suite against Dysart Unified School District. The student handbook was later revised by the district with language banning bullying of LGBT students. "Overall, I think they did a great job in adding the protections and a better job enforcing," Laieski said. He is pursuing his high-school-equivalency diploma and plans to attend community college. "Obviously, there's always room for improvement."

Laieski said he felt the need to reach out to all the schools in Arizona after talking to his friends in other school districts. His organization is operated mainly by himself and his friend, Casey Cameron, 35, who lives in Chicago. Their hopes for the group, other than policy changes, include goals to provide services for lesbian and gay youth, including counselors and a homeless shelter.

The group is "absolutely" ready to file lawsuits in certain situations such as a suicide or attempted suicide because of bullying, any kind of hate by teachers or administrators, and insufficient punishment for any act of bullying. In Laieski's experience, administrators frequently fail to punish bullies as recommended in school handbooks.

"They say, 'Oh, we talked to him. It shouldn't happen again,' " he explained. "It's obviously going to become adequate if they at least follow the rule book, and depending on the degree, we can go from there."

The letter campaign by Laieski has prompted responses from only a few officials, including two Phoenix-area districts. Most recipients acknowledged they got the letter, but did not mention any plans to take steps to protect against bullying in the future.

One main priority for GLUAD is to make sure school districts address sexual orientation specifically in policies regarding bullying. Many districts get their policies and language from recommendations by the Arizona School Boards Association. Juliet Martin, a spokewoman for the association, said that bullying based on sexual orientation is not specifically mentioned in model policies. "Principals are using the language that's in there, which certainly is inclusive of anti-gay (behavior) just as it is of race or religion or anything else," Martin said. "Bullying is bullying, and they're dealing with it in all shapes and forms."

According to Martin, the association has plans provide districts with around a dozen new policy advisories this month. She said that revisions to language about bullying would be included, but did not say whether or not bullying of lesbians and gays would be specifically mentioned in those revisions.

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Schools take steps to protect students from bullying

By Christine Rogel crogel@lcsun-news.com

LAS CRUCES - Christopher Burton understands how cruel kids can be. He said he was "tormented" for his appearance, experiencing beatings and receiving life-threatening letters from gang members.

"Bullying has always been a part of my life since I started going to school," said Burton, an openly gay senior at Las Cruces High School. "I was Tased in school - on school property - by another student. This was the same student who had just been bullying me the entire time I was in middle school."

According to statistics provided by the Family Pride Foundation, an advocacy agency for at-risk youth, 28 percent of gay youth drop out of school because of physical or verbal harassment, and gay youth are six times more likely than straight teens to attempt suicide.

Bullying not only targets youth who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual, but all children considered different by their peers.

In Las Cruces Public Schools, between 15 percent and 20 percent of students have been bullied and between 15 percent to 25 percent of students have bullied others, according to Nancy Parker a counselor at Camino Real Middle School who is helping launch a districtwide, anti-bullying initiative. In middle school specifically, where bullying behavior tends to peak, 30 percent of students experience bullying.

"The district has made a commitment to revisiting this because right now it's a matter of life and death. That's just how serious this is," Parker said. "It's become pervasive, it is ongoing. It is almost the new normal. And that scares the dickens out of me."


12-point plan

The program, called Bully Proofing our Schools, involves a 12-point plan for addressing bullying, said Martin Greer, lead supervising school psychologist and supervisor of counseling and guidance services for LCPS.

"We are really trying to emphasis this isn't a one-time training. We want teachers and kids to understand that we are going to be consistently on this, we want to keep it up," he said.

The program includes updating the disciplinary plan, training students and staff and working with parents. It also involves collecting new data, and the district plans to launch an online bullying survey that schools can access. At Camino Real Middle School, there is a more extensive data collection project, involving focus groups to document student experiences.

"The message is that we're not going to support bullying and we'll exercise discipline on those that do," Superintendent Stan Rounds said. "We want a good road map so we're consistent and reasonable in our approach. The end game is we want to stop it."


Ebb and flow

Bullying escalates in third grade, becomes most prevalent in middle school and then starts to diminish in high school, Parker said. Statistics for high school students may be lower because students drop out because they feel unsafe, insecure and unhappy as a result of being bullied, she said.

Greer said that some students bully for social power, others because they come from dysfunctional families and others because of abuse. Greer said part of the Bully Proofing our Schools program involves psychological screenings to evaluate bullies for aggressive tendencies and victims for depression, anger, suicidal thinking, retaliation and the level of trauma.

If left unchecked, kids who are bullied can suffer from depression and anxiety into adulthood, Greer said.

This type of trauma led to a school shooting at Zia Middle School in 1992.

"Fortunately the other student survived and recovered, but essentially the kid was tired of being bullied," Greer said.



School programs

Along with the new districtwide initiative, schools handle bullying on an individual basis, hosting programs that inform students and encouraging them to speak out against bullying behavior.

At Picacho Middle School, a group of students participated in a two-day training with the Safe School Ambassadors program, a national program that trains bystanders to speak up. At San Andres High School, media students produced an anti-bullying video. At Valley View Elementary School, students performed skits on bullying and Conlee Elementary School students signed an anti-bullying pledge and marched in an anti-bullying parade.

Student groups are another important piece in creating a positive school environment. At Las Cruces High School, members of the pom squad and students with hair dyed pink participate in the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) which aims to promote solidarity, faculty sponsor Daniel Ruben said.

While the club's mission is honorable, it's not always easy.

"We can't keep up GSA posters on the walls at school," Ruben said. "They get torn down very quickly."

Ruben said that when he first decided to sponsor the club, bullying was not a primary concern, but since then it has become weekly topic.

"As trust was formed, that's when people started staying after and saying, 'Hey, Mr. Ruben, this is happening in this class," he said.

Christopher De La Rosa, president of the Las Cruces High School GSA, said he wants to create a safe haven for any student who needs it.

Burton, a senior, said the support of the GSA was ''incredible."

"Just knowing there are people in the school that understand what we go through, and even though we suffer the slings and arrows of insults and horrific scenes, or beatings, we just know there are people there that can pick us back up and stand in front of us or beside us and tell these people, 'no, they are just like you and me, they just have an different opinion of life,'" he said.

"Bullying, I've seen it all my life. And it hurts, but I've learned that bullying has no affect on my soul because the people that I love and care about are there for me and are able to support me," Burton said.

Christine Rogel can be reached at (575) 541-5424.


Warning signs of bullying

•Avoiding certain situations, people or places.

•Pretending to be sick so that he or she doesn't have to go to school.

•Changes in behavior, such as being withdrawn and passive, being overly active and aggressive, or being self-destructive.

•Frequent crying or feeling sad.

•Signs of low self-esteem.

•Being unwilling to speak or showing signs of fear when asked about certain situations, people, or places.

•Signs of injuries.

•Suddenly receiving lower grades or showing signs of learning problems.

•Recurrent unexplained physical symptoms such as stomach pains and fatigue.
Source: Stop Bullying Now! - http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Warning_Signs_that_Your_Child/

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