Where Are We In Our Fight Against Bullying?
by Trent Jeffrey, Assistant Principal
October 30, 2008
The Anamosa school district is working very hard to “Stop the Bullying” in our schools. Over the past couple of months we have trained our staff, held kick-offs in all of our buildings, and held a community kick-off. Right now we are continuing to meet as buildings to make sure that what we are doing is good for our students. We are meeting to see what is going well and what we need to tweak. One thing that has changed in all our buildings is supervision. We have look at our “Hot Spots” (Data from the March 2008 Survey Results) and have increased our supervision in the areas that were a concern.
Wednesdays in Anamosa are Olweus days. In each building we are having Olweus meetings with our students on a variety of topics. These topics can range from Cyber bullying to making good choices for you and those around you. The Anamosa School Foundation was very generous and purchased t-shirts for every staff member. (Thank you!) The only building that is not having Olweus meetings every week is the High School. We are meeting every other week for Olweus. The opposite week is portfolio which is a graduation requirement for our students.
We are very excited about what we are doing and the direction we are heading. Good things are happening and will continue to happen as long as we are all working together for the same purpose……our students. In March we will be taking the Bullying Survey again. We are excited to compare the data from 2007-2008 to see if the changes we have made are helping our students feel safer in school.
If you are interested, here is a link that you can go to to learn more about Olweus. The link has different options for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. http://www.olweus.org/public/index.page
