Commission hears tales of school bullying

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. - For four years, Dan Jacobson was told everyone hated him.

He was called a variety of names, and had to deal with threatening phone calls to his home. Jacobson was even physically assaulted twice while a student at Jackson Memorial High School, according to his parents.

"We dearly loved our son and did not understand why he was hated so much," his mother, Rena Jacobson, said Wednesday night at a public hearing on school bullying.

According to his father, Barry Jacobson, school administrators expressed sympathy but did nothing more for his son, who graduated in 2006.

"Dan had a hall monitor yell at him for calling a student a homophobe. The hall monitor did not question the student who was calling Dan a faggot," Rena Jacobson said. "The message for our son was that no one is going to help stop the bullying and harassment."

For more than two hours, speaker after speaker approached the microphone at Lawrence High School to tell the 14-member Governor's Commission on School Bullying personal stories about children being bullied.

Wednesday's hearing was the first of three as commissioners gather testimony from the public about the problem of childhood bullying throughout the state. The next hearing will be tomorrow in Gloucester County.

Formed in October, the commission will submit a report and recommendations to the governor in July. It could suggest specific policies on bullying or enhanced training for school officials, among other possibilities.

"Our goal is really just to hear from the public about what they've experienced," said Stuart Green, commission chairman. "That testimony is useful to the commission."

Bullying peaks in middle school, grades six, seven, and eight, but can happen at any level, Green said. It can take the form of verbal intimidation, physical assault, sexual harassment, or hazing.

Much of the testimony Wednesday night echoed the Jacobsons'. Parents, some emotional, told the painful stories of their children being verbally and physically harassed based on perceived sexual orientation, abilities, race, gender, and appearance.

Almost all agreed the resources offered are not nearly adequate.

Fay Reiter of Hopewell said school administrators and police were useless when her son, a ninth grader, was punched in the face so hard he had a concussion in September.

Reiter's son was harassed and called a homosexual epithet because he wears tight pants.

"There was never any intervention on the part of the teacher. The whole thing was taken very lightly," she said. "They think the bullying boys are just being boys."

Robert McGarry, a school administrator in Monmouth County, encouraged the commission to emphasize to teachers the impact of bullying.

"Pejorative homophobic speech and related bullying is truly something of an epidemic in our nation's schools," McGarry said. "Phrases such as 'You're so gay' . . . have become regular vernacular of the youth and even adults in our schools."

Others addressed bullying based on ability.

One parent testified that her daughter, a special-needs child, is targeted by students who throw things at her on the bus, has been forced to give up lunch money, and is made fun of because of her weight.

Afsheen Shamsi, representing the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said New Jersey ranked among the top 10 states for bullying incidents against Muslim students.

One student, she said, came to school last year and found a scrawled message on his locker calling him a terrorist and telling him to "go home."

"This is a kid who's grown up here. He doesn't have another home," Shamsi said.

Other incidents include a student named Osama repeatedly being harassed, and a history teacher making derogatory remarks about Muslims and Arabs.

Christi Gervasio, whose daughter attends sixth grade in Hamilton, said her child was continuously harassed by another female student.

Although a guidance counselor tried to mediate, Gervasio said, she was eventually told "my daughter might as well just deal with it."

Lisa Burke, a Lawrence resident who has taught in both public and private schools, said the firsthand testimonies are just "the tip of the tip of the iceberg."

"We need to put an end to the notion that kids will be kids and recognize that bullying is an expression of power," she said.

School psychologists and experts on bullying encouraged action by the commission.

"I am struck by the hurt and harm" caused when "uninvolved adults, well meaning at heart, are undertrained and perhaps understaffed in helping in this area," said John Lestino, representing the New Jersey Association of School Psychologists. "We need your help. We need your support."

Green, a medical educator at Overlook Hospital in Summit, said the anti-bullying movement was relatively fresh.

"In the United States generally, efforts to address bullying started with Columbine," he said, referring to the 1999 Colorado high school massacre. "In a sense the anti-bullying movement is quite new. We have a lot more to learn and a lot more to do."

The real focus of addressing bullying, Green said, is giving students the support they need and ensuring they have someone to turn to.

"We're really talking about the issue of how well supported every student is during their school years," Green said. "It's a violence issue, but it's also a social and emotional learning issue. It's a how-children-grow kind of issue."

The next hearing will be tomorrow night from 6 to 9 at Gloucester County College, Sewell Health Science Building, Room 500. The third hearing will be held at Lincoln High School in Jersey City on March 4.

To learn more, go to www.njbullying.org.

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