Bullying Program Seeks to Make New Rochelle Schools Safer

Bullying prevention was the main topic of a recent daylong series of activities and assemblies at New Rochelle's Isaac E. Young Middle School.

Sixth-grade English teacher Ann Marie Ambrosino said the day was created to send a good message to the students about a safe school environment.

"There is a spotlight on [bullying]," she said. "This turns it into a positive light."

Ambrosino said the students learn that they do have a voice and should speak up when they observe bullying behavior.

During a sixth-grade assembly Ambrosino shows students a film and then they were asked to identify what they saw in it.

Among the answers were "sorrow," "aggressiveness" and "people giving up their rights," the students volunteered after raising their hands.

The overarching message, the students offered, was that bullies may have power, but they need to be disempowered.

Throughout the school, classroom doors were decorated with anti-bullying messages. Banners with an anti-bullying message were placed at certain points and the students were encouraged to sign them to show they supported the message.

The middle school was the first in the district to have a bullying prevention coordinating committee, trained in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in May 2009. This was the first year the school had the daylong activities, Ambrosino said.

Awards were handed out to students for the best decorated door, best rap song and best poem. Students and teachers alike decorated white T-shirts in the message of the day.

Alicia Ferrullo, 13, played a bully in a student-made film that showed two kids start beating up another one. In one scenario, a nearby student did nothing; in the other, the student stepped in.

The eighth grader said the topic was an important one to keep on the front burner.

"There a lot of bullying around," she said, adding that people may not know that their behavior might be verging on a bad behavior.

Daneyal Raja, 13, said the day and the class preparations leading up to it help people learn right from wrong.

He said he learned that 100,000 students stop out of school every year because of bullying.

Raja said it was a matter of education people on good and bad behavior.

"It teaches us that there are smaller kids and we should help them," the eighth grader said.