Committee3

Tuesday July 14, 2015

Dear Superintendent Bednar:

We are concerned on the issue of cyberbullying and feel that our students need to be more educated on it. We believe that the district should develop certain policies that are related to cyberbullying in order to educate everybody about the hazards that come from it - including teachers, students and parents.

We feel students need to be taught what can be considered cyberbullying because there are many different levels of it. Our students appear to not know this very well. Spreading rumors or making fun of a student's grades may seem like little things to them, but they are forms of bullying that they should be aware of. Students would not like it if it happened to them. Covering cyberbullying is becoming more and more necessary as the years go by, with new technology constantly developing. By educating teachers, they will be able to come up with additional methods on how to inform their students and can incorporate it into the school year. The school should share statistics and examples with our students and parents about the negative effects cyberbullying can have on an individual's life. This could help get students to understand what it feels like to be bullied. If they have a sense of what it feels like, they may be more cautious and less likely to do it themselves. Parents should stay informed on this issue because they are responsible for the actions of their child. Schools are going to continue to use and teach technology because the internet is a very important lesson within education. Informing parents on the nude picture incident will help to open their eyes on what children are capable of and that they should always be monitoring their children when they are using the internet. Being cyberbullied can completely destroy someone on all levels and we feel the best way of helping to stop it is to educate everyone!

Some policies that the district should develop is a school-wide assembly/presentation on the issue. Then, following the assembly we feel students should have to do some sort of assignment to go along with what was taught at the assembly such as a project, a skit, a paper, etc. We also feel the district should involve parents more by sending a contract home for them to sign or even something as simple as an encouragement to students to teach and inform their guardians the new skills that they are being taught. Teachers could also encourage parents to come into the school for more information. Teachers could have meetings where parents are able to come in and talk about the contract and the consequences of bullying and how to prevent it.

We have a few websites to share with you that provide great information and resources on cyberbullying:

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Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. We hope you found this information helpful and we look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely, Committee 3