TheLittleHawk Iowa City High School Iowa City, Iowa volume LXX-issue VI May 22, 2012 www.thelittlehawk.com
Bully.
Causing fear and hurt among students, teenage bullying has a real and powerful presence at City High. story by Cassie Wassink
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ot too long ago, Jane* ‘14 loved school. Now, waking up each morning, she must convince herself all over again to go to class. The explanation for this drastic change can be explained in one word: bullying. “My grades are going down because I don’t want to go to school as much as I used to,” Jane said. “I used to love school, but classes I used to love I now dread, because of people in them.” Jane’s social experience changed when a friend in her inner group stopped talking to her and began spreading rumors, turning many of her other friends against her as well. “At first I thought I just wasn’t getting texts back,” Jane said. “Then I realized it was a pattern.” Jane’s story is representative of a larger story told every day throughout the halls of City High. Bullying is defined by www.bullyingstatistics. org as “behaviors that focus on making someone else feel inadequate, or focus on belittling someone else. Bullying includes harassment, physical harm, repeatedly demeaning speech and efforts to ostracize another person. Bullying is active, and is done with the intention of bringing another person down.” City High is no exception to the pervasive force of bullying. At City High, 31 percent of students polled reported having been bullied themselves and 60 percent reported having witnessed bullying during their time at City High. “Every high school has issues along these lines,” Principal John Bacon said. Despite his acknowledgement that these issues are not specific to City High, Bacon maintains a zero tolerance policy with regard to any form of bullying. “No one’s a saint and no one’s perfect, but one thing I have absolutely no tolerance for is people just being mean and cruel to each other,” Bacon said. “I don’t expect you to be perfect, but there’s no reason we can’t treat everyone around us with kindness.” While Bacon’s stance is clear, the shady area lies in which situations call for intervention from the administration. According to Bacon, the school’s policy dictates that any offense taking place on school property falls within the school’s right and responsibility to intervene. Cyber-bullying is more complicated because it can occur anytime, anywhere, so a school’s jurisdiction is less clear. Bacon stated that the general litmus test is if bullying significantly disrupts a student’s school day, then it is again the right and responsibility of the school to intervene. To counter the negative effects of bullying, Bacon stated that City High makes adults available with whom the students can discuss their personal lives. While teachers and administrators are often available, Rick Spears with UAY Youth Out-
reach Counselor has been employed at City High for this purpose for the past four years. “I want to reach out to students and let them know they can talk at UAY, they can be safe, they can speak to adults about these issues if that is their choice,” Spears said. “My goal is to be a resource for kids who need help at this time of life.” Specifically, Spears described a desire to develop relationships with students. With these personal relationships, Spears works with students to brainstorm options for difficult situations they encounter. “We help the students come up with solutions that they can live with, which is different for everybody,” Spears said. “We try to develop options, try to problem solve, but we let them make the decision about how to deal with the situation.” Among the situations that Spears encounters are students dealing with bullying on account of their sexual orientation. Bob* ‘13 is a student who stopped denying his sexual orientation midway through high school. Many openly gay high school students become the butt of extensive amounts of bullying: physical, emotional and cyber. For Bob, this bullying occurred more throughout the time period from seventh through ninth grade, when he was not open about his sexual orientation. “I got cyber-bullied for a while,” Bob said. “I got facebook messages threatening to beat me up and kill me.” Bob described the impact that fear of bullying had on his own attitude during this period of time. “When I was scared that I was going to be bullied, I was really mean to people for a while,” Bob said. “But that’s not a good way to cope.” Since he stopped denying his sexual orientation, both to himself and others, Bob’s outlook on bullying has changed dramatically. He is now a strong advocate against using the word retarded as a negative adjective. He attributes to his own experience of becoming comfortable with his identity: “Growing up and maturing,” Bob said, describing the personal transition that led to this change in perspective, “realizing that there’s nothing wrong with who I am.” Bob and Jane have both been influenced by the pervasive force of bullying. Despite the undeniable reality of this presence at City High, Bacon remains positive and optimistic about the potential of this school to continue to combat the damage of this ever-present harm. “One of the great things at City High, one of the most special, is that it really has a legacy of acceptance and tolerance,” Bacon said. “Across different social groups, we are all Little Hawks, we are all a school family. There is a great harmony, and our responsibility is to continue to advance that legacy.” photo by RENATA STEWART
City High computer debate continues Administration and tech support debate the benefits of Macs vs. PCs for school computers.
by Ellen Carman and Oli Peters olipeters@thelittlehawk.com ellencarman@thelittlehawk.com
Mac and PC computers have been rivaling each other for years and it is no exception in the academic world. City High currently is a dual platform school, meaning the school uses both types of computers, and new changes in the district policy could be changing this. “It is a mixed environment out in the real world.” Vice Principal, Terry
Coleman said. “I think there are some things you can do on Macs that are just far simpler, whether it be designing a graphic project or producing some sort of a movie. I’ve used some of the Windows software and it’s just not as well integrated.” City High Technology Services Director Greg Vrasper agrees that the applications Macs have can make things simpler for computer based classes. Part of the change City High may undergo has to do with the new
IT Director David Dude. “Last year when Mr. Dude came in, one of the things that he was proposing was for simplicity or the idea of easier support for our computers and to have one platform.” Vrasper said. “He would prefer to have that PC based. He was going off the numbers of computers already in the district that were primarily PCs.” Now, in order to have Mac computers, a school must go through an application process and be able to show
what the need for the computer is. “We applied for maintaining at least one Mac lab in the library. Where there could be changes is like that little guy sitting over there.” Coleman said, pointing to his own computer. “Teacher computers, office computers, and that kind of thing would be the place where I would anticipate that there could be some changes where you just wouldn’t see individuals with desktop Macs.” City High is almost split, in terms
of Mac to PC computers in the building. West High is exclusively Windows with the exception of one computer lab for their journalism and arts classes. “It seems to make some sense for both sides of town to have a similar platform for that.” Coleman said. “And so I don’t see that changing.”
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