Standing before the Lawrence School Board, Tonganoxie resident Alan Theno stood tall and looked strong behind the microphone as he addressed the members. The middle aged, light haired man’s speech was timid and hesitant, even though this was not the first time he has had to share his horrendous story about his son, Dylan.
Over a period of four years, Alan and his wife Cheryl watched their son’s confidence and self-esteem plummet because of constant bullying and harassment at Tonganoxie High School. He told the board Dylan left school his junior year and the family filed a federal lawsuit claiming the school district denied him the right to equal educational access under Title IX. Dylan was left scarred mentally.
“Our once happy son turned withdrawn and angry,” Alan Theno said.
Theno spoke at the Feb. 26 board meeting to offer his family’s story to support the Lawrence Board of Education’s decision to update its existing harassment policy. The board will soon add the words "bullying, cyberbullying and hazing” to the policy.
In the three years after the Thenos filed their lawsuit, bullying has evolved significantly and is more sophisticated. It is now possible to bully someone even without a face-to-face confrontation. Because of the Internet, students now have the unique
chance to bully anonymously through programs like AOL Instant Messenger, Myspace.com or even by a cell phone text message.
In a 2006 report, two university researchers define this new form of bullying called “cyberbullying” as the “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text." The report by Justin Patchin of The University of Wisconsin and Sameer Hinduja of Florida Atlantic University surveyed 1,400 adolescents. It concluded that more than one-third had been victims of some form of cyberbullying.
The Lawrence Board of Education adding cyberbullying to its harassment policy allows Lawrence schools to discipline students for actions even taken off school grounds. “It may not be on our [computer] equipment or our time, but it does affect us if students come to school upset,” Dr. Karen Vespestad, Director of Grants, Board Services and Strategic Planning for Lawrence public schools said.
Nancy Willard, the executive director of the Oregon based Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use says that schools also need to be aware of the flip side of
cyberbullying. There is a possibility that a student cyberbullying could be the victim of a bully in school. “Cyberbullying may be a continuation of in-school bullying or may be in retaliation for in-school bullying,” she said.
Even with the Lawrence School Board doing its part in curtailing cyberbullying, Vespestad says that it comes down to parents teaching their children prevention at home.
As a 2002 article in the Journal of School Violence explains parents must talk more than just once with their children about cybersafety. “There appears to be a paucity of ongoing communication, leaving parents generally unaware of the online behaviors of their children,” the report said.
For the Thenos however, prevention only went so far. The family tried more than 40 times to get authorities at various levels of government to do something about the bullying of their son. They talked with authorities from the school district up to the Governor’s office but to little avail.
The family finally was recognized last August when the Tonganoxie school district was ordered to pay them $440,000 after the Thenos won their lawsuit.
“It wasn’t about the money, it was about getting justice for Dylan,” Alan Theno said.