CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) -
There has been a lot of talk about bullying as the new school year has passed the six-week mark.
On Tuesday, around 500 Corpus Christi Independent School District middle school students watched a movie about bullying at the Century 16 movie theater.
Victor Hernandez is the Director for Instructional Support at CCISD, and one thing he wanted to stress is that, with a change in the law, there are more discipline options now available to schools when it comes to dealing with a bully.
Hernandez said that the punishment for a bully at CCISD schools can result in the student being suspended, moved to another school or even expulsion. One such incident could land a kid on the expulsion list, depending on the severity of the aggression.
He also said the district has not taken a look at its bullying statistics yet, but will around the 10-week mark.
According to Hernandez, last year there was a real spike in reports at the first of the year, as the district focused on trying to curb the problem. Gradually as the school year went on, the numbers went down. They hope that is still the case when they run the numbers in a few weeks.
Either way, they have let all the principals know that bullying has to be dealt with and quickly.
"We started this year making sure that everyone on the campus understands, as soon as a kid comes to you and says, 'I was bullied. I was pushed around,' it has to be reported," Hernandez said. "You have ten days to report it. So I'm a principal wondering what I should do. I got a situation you need to take care of it, even if it kind of looks like you've got numbers going up, but if you don't do things to take care of it immediately, well that's going to be a bigger push against you for not taking action."
Hernandez said that not taking care of it simply won't be tolerated, because they have seen what happens when the problem is not taken care of on campuses. So he feels that principals are now more fearful of not reporting the bullying than they were before, when they may not have wanted to report problems on their campus to superiors.
Of course, all bullying incidents are supposed to be reported online to the district. Parents and children can also do that on the CCISD Web site.
