Persuasive Essay On Bullying Laws

Bullying is defined as “verbal, physical, or psychological abuse or teasing accompanied by real or perceived imbalance of power” and is usually targets what children perceive as different (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is prevalent across the nation. It has devastating effects on students each day. Bullying is a problem for all students, regardless of race, gender or class. The National Education Association reports that 160,000 children are absent intentionally from school each day because they fear being bullied whether it is an attack or just intimidation by other students. This accounts for 15% of all school absenteeism (Hunter, 2012). Dan Olweus (1993) from the National School Safety Center tells us that bullying includes three parts: (1)

Furthermore, since there are no federal laws that address bullying, “bullying overlaps with discriminatory harassment when it is based on race, national origin, color, sex, age, disability, or religion.”(Federal Laws 1) After the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, forty-eight states put anti-bullying laws into place. All of their laws state that a hardcore investigation must take place, along with reporting it, followed by strict punishment. A victim has to report it happening from the same person or group repeatedly before anything is done about it, in order to suspend or expel the bully. Not many students in school are willing to report any bullying activity, they fear that they too will become bullied, for being a “snitch” or “tattle tale”. Students know that if the bully discovers who told on them, then it will make them more hostile and escalate them to find more cruel way to punish their victim. Even if the bully is expelled from school there is other means of torturing someone.

Bullying is bound to happen anywhere at any time but occurs mostly within school limits. Kathleen Winkler defines bulling in her book, Bullying, as “...any kind of ongoing physical or verbal mistreatment, done with the intent to harm, where there is an imbalance of power between bully and victim” (Winkler 14). Bullying has an extremely important impact on one’s everyday life and can affect their life negatively getting to the point where they can no longer take the blow. To try and prevent bullying from taking place in schools, one needs to know how bullying effects a person, what the role of each person involved in the situation is, and have knowledge of specific methods on how to prevent it. Bullying in schools is a serious problem and a handful of school do their part to prevent it; others, not as much, which means there is room for improvements.

The Department of Education exists to create equal opportunities for all its students. However, with the increase in bullying rates, the U.S education system fails to make it clear that bullying is intolerable. Bullying’s harmful impact on students’ well being has been studied and continues to be researched. The U.S Department of Health & Human Services defines bullying as the “unwanted aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance” (2014). Bullies can be identified as people who use their power to manipulate or inflict unnecessary pain on others. In the U.S, bullying rates in secondary school are still on the rise. According to the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of

The July 23,2010 New York Times article “There’s Only One Way to Stop a Bully” by Susan Engel and Marlene Sandstrom (2010), reveals that laws do not stop bullying, only teaching the values of human life can make a difference . In Massachusetts, a recent state law is about anti-bullying. According to Engel and Sandstorm (2010), “schools are required to institute anti-bullying curriculum, investigate acts of bullying and report the most serious cases to law enforcement officers”. Research shows Children have been always been mean to one another. The desire and ability to protect and tolerate are not natural instinct in children.

The issue of bullying became a concern in the United States after researchers found that many school shootings were a result of students wanting to get revenge for being a victim of bullying. It first appeared that they were loners or individuals who set out to hurt others for their own satisfaction, but they were actually finally standing up for themselves. Bullying can cause students to lose their identity and feel useless. Students who are victims of bullying become depressed and may suffer from psychological issues. Many students that are being bullied suffer from low levels of self-esteem, anger for not standing up for themselves, or hopelessness. The behavior of bullying can destroy another

Moreover, behavioral and emotional differences intimidate many people. This study provided the many different definitions of bullying and is a great jumping point for teachers to understand the causes and effects of bullying, both in school and legally. However, the nine helpful recommendations fail to be truly applicable to a classroom and may even raise more questions than answers. Most would agree that policies that apply to schools are a state-level issue, as per our Constitution. However, if the available definitions of bullying are too broad and students do not report issues or teachers fail to advocate for victims or fail to be strong moral agents and correct issues as they see them then all the other recommendations in the article have substantial

At the state and federal level, there are many general laws currently in effect regarding bullying. Federally, there is the Safe Schools Improvement Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and 20 USC 7118, which is the federal law, not policy, about bullying – The Safe Schools Improvement Act

Bullying has always played a negative role in schools, it damages students and prevents them from obtaining self confidence and motivation to achieve more without having someone to abusively criticize. This issue has spread rapidly across the schools of america, there’s many kids that are currently going through this stage in school. In fact, each day 160,000 students miss school for fear of being bullied. Missing school because of bully abuse just shows how traumatized this issue has left them, worst thing is that the excuse for missing school is almost always made up, because they even fear to let people know that they are being bullied. There’s different kinds of abuse in schools, mentally, verbally or physically. The earliest stages of

There are Anti-Bully laws in 48 states, however, they are not strict enough. In fact, in 85% of bullying cases, there is no intervention or effort made by teachers or administration members to stop the bullying from taking place (Kulbarsh). These teachers need to be punished, if they themselves, as teachers don’t help students from being bullied. Teachers are supposed to make their students feel safe, and to know that most of them will not help them is very disheartening. Also, I believe that bullies should be fined and have to take a mandatory class about how serious bullying is and how it can affect someone’s entire life. As well, as the victim of bullying, they should take a class, or therapy to help them through the issues bullying has caused

“Juvonen said, ‘school administrators have an especially difficult time addressing online bullying, or cyberbullying, and they tend to disagree about whether the issue should even be their responsibility’. ” This quote says that some school administrators and officials do not want to help stop cyber bullying that is happening between students as it is not happening on school grounds, however, it is affecting performance in school. Another reason school administrators have a hard time stopping bullying is, a lot of times, school officials have a hard time stopping bullying because they have to take the words of students because they weren’t there to see the encounter. “28% of U.S. students in grades 6–12 experienced bullying.” This shows that 28 kids out of 100 have been bullied. While that seems like a small amount, 20% of students between grades 9-12 have been bullied. That means that eight percent of students grades 6-8 have been

Bullying is not called for at all.Kids bully one another to feel like they’re above one another.Bullying needs to be a law.The state and local lawmakers are being a law protect children and prevent bullying.Through the state’s code, there are many states that address bullying a different way. Bullying is in multiple laws,including the criminal code of the state that may only be applied to the juveniles.Out of 50 states there are only 34 states that has bullying set for a law.The states that doesn’t require bullying as a law is Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, Hawaii, Michigan, and other states. There aren’t any federal laws that is addressing to bullying because bullying overlaps discrimination harassment which is based off of so many

U.S. Department of Education (2011). Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington, DC.

Lawmakers, activists, and parents have all been working to institute laws to help reconcile the bullying that has invaded the schools. It has not been a speedy process, only nine states require the schools to report bullying to the local authorities (Garby, 2013). New Jersey has the stiffest anti-bullying law thus far, by suspending or

What if you were terrified to go to your school every day? 160,000 students miss school each day because they get bullied and are scared of what will happen (“Bullying Statistics”). Bullying has been a major problem in schools for far too long. Students should not be scared to go to a place that is supposed to be safe and where they can express themselves. Students that bully never get the punishment they deserve, which causes them to continue to act. When you go to school, you should know that if you are getting treated in a horrific way, the people who were treating you that way will get punished. Students who bully should be suspended from school.