For Immediate Release
March 21, 2006
Please Contact: Michael Bloom, 617-722-1650

BARRIOS ANTI-BULLYING BILL ONE STEP

CLOSER TO A VOTE

 

  A “Safe Schools” bill written to help school districts develop plans to combat school bullying is one step closer to a vote said its sponsor and author Senator Jarrett T. Barrios.  Bullying can be a gateway to future violence said Barrios, who serves as the Senate Chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.  The bill asks every school system in the state to develop a plan to prevent and respond to bullying.

“Responding to bullying is critical because it not only threatens the safety of students but bullies are also more likely than others to commit crimes later in life,” said Senator Barrios.  “We need to be working with schools to protect victims and develop programs that help bullies change their destructive behavior.”

Barrios, after meeting with Everett middle school students in 2004, filed the “Safe Schools” bill that asks schools to develop a Safe Schools Plan to respond to bullying.  Under the bill, schools will work with the state to develop programs to prevent instances of bullying and violence.  The Joint Committee on Education, chaired by Senator Robert Antonioni, last week released a comprehensive anti-bullying bill that incorporate all the provisions of the Barrios bill.  Antonioni and Barrios have been working together on a statewide plan to reduce bullying.

“Schools need to develop policies, and they need to develop clear protocols and consequences for children who engage in bullying,” said Dr. Elizabeth Englander, Director of the Massachusetts Agression Reduction Center.   “That doesn’t mean that every school needs to have the same policy, but every school needs to think about policies that make sense for them and needs to construct those policies in clear language, understandable to both children and staff.  Policies which lay out (a) the types of student behavior that classify as bullying; (b) and defined consequences for engaging in that type of behavior can go far in lifting morale and encouraging children to report.”

Bullying is also seen as a gateway to more serious—and often violent—criminal activity:  60% of males who were bullies in grades six through nine were, as adults, convicted of at least one crime.  Earlier this year twin brothers, Daniel and Peter McGuane, 21, allegedly beat another young man to death after the 4^th of July fireworks in Ayer.  In the days following the incident, parents and students in the community shared stories of how the brothers had spent much of their time in middle and high school bullying other students. 

Barrios continued, “I’ve heard from enough parents throughout the state to know that bullying is not an isolated problem in one school or town – it’s a public safety problem that our state and schools must respond to quickly.”  On Thursday September 15^th Senator Barrios testified with the Everett students in support of the “Safe Schools” bill at a State House hearing urging legislators to take action this year to respond to bullying.

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