Victoria Nava

Take Action Against Bullying This October

October 8, 2024
Family Resources

One in every five students reports being bullied at some point during the academic school year. It can take place at any school campus, anytime, and anywhere. October is National Bullying Prevention Month, a time to increase awareness and education around bullying. This month-long event serves to help prevent childhood bullying and promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

At IDEA Public Schools, our schools are fostering a safe and supportive learning environment for all students. We are deeply committed to reducing and preventing bullying and cyberbullying inside and outside of our classrooms and creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community for all students.

As a proud partner of Move This World , IDEA scholars at every grade level participate in anti-bullying lessons and engage in productive and supportive conversations about bullying at school.

To help our families learn how to support at home, we gathered resources for parents, families, and students to empower themselves with the tools in place to support victims of bullying and educate families to learn the warning signs.

What is bullying?

Bullying is an unwanted behavior by another individual or group of individuals that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may harm or distress the targeted individual, including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm. Cyberbullying or cyberharassment is a form of online bullying or harassment using electronic means. Bullying can also be defined as one who is intentionally seeking to harm or intimidate someone.

There are three types of bullying: physical bullying, verbal bullying, and social bullying. Verbal or emotional bullying examples include teasing or intentionally excluding someone from a group.

Bullying can happen to anyone.

That’s why it is important to know and identify signs of someone bullying or being bullied. A person who is bullied in a school setting may display the following behaviors:

Frequent injuries

Lost or destroyed clothing, books, electronics, or jewelry

Frequent illness or faking illness

Changes in eating habits, like suddenly skipping meals or binge eating. Kids may come home from school hungry because they did not eat lunch

Declining grades, loss of interest in schoolwork, or not wanting to go to school

Sudden loss of friends or avoidance of social situations

Feelings of helplessness or decreased self-esteem

Self-destructive behaviors such as running away from home, harming themselves, or talking about suicide

While it is important to identify a person being bullied, it is just as important to identify a bully. A person who is a bully may display the following behaviors:

Get into physical or verbal fights

Are increasingly aggressive

Get sent to the principal’s office or detention frequently

Have unexplained extra money or new belongings

Blame others for their problems

Don’t accept responsibility for their actions

Bullying and being bullied can both be an outcry for help. A bully may be experiencing abuse, lack of friends, difficulties learning, or family dynamics issues themselves, whereas a person being bullied may lose self-esteem, experience anxiety and depression, thoughts of self-harm, and/or suicidal ideations.

What Parents Can Do

Parents can also play an important role in identifying and helping stop bullying or cyberbullying. Parents must be informed about the different types of bullying and keep in constant communication with their child about how they are feeling and what they are experiencing in school. Parents can serve as role models of kindness, create safe spaces to talk with their child about bullying and mental health and implement different ways to build up self-esteem.

If you think your child is being bullied or bullying others in school, please reach out to your campus leaders, academic counselor or social worker right away! Learn how to access home resources to Move This World and check out additional resources below.

IDEA’s Commitment to Safety

IDEA prioritizes “School Culture and Climate” in our schools because scholars feel empowered to thrive when they feel safe, connected, and celebrated. At IDEA Public Schools, we cultivate school pride and a sense of belonging through school traditions, social-emotional learning through Move this World, and access to mental health support through our counselors and social workers. At all schools in the Rio Grande Valley, campuses have implemented The Hope Squad, a peer support group for suicide prevention.

If you think your child is experiencing bullying or is bullying others at our IDEA campuses, please reach out to campus leaders and check out our additional resources provided below.

IDEA considers bullying a serious matter and encourages prompt reporting. If this is an emergency, call 911.

IDEA provides an anonymous hotline to report incidents of bullying:

The IDEA Hotline: 1-855-428-3561 – The Hotline is manned between the hours of 7:30 AM and 6 PM. Calls made to the hotline outside of these hours will be recorded via voicemail and responded to within 12 hours.