Organization aims to spark bullying awareness
Jun. 20—West Texas Parents Against Bullying, a group of area parents working with Ector County ISD to raise awareness, aims to put an end to bullying.
WTPAB's mission is to coordinate with ECISD and the community to bring awareness to physical, mental, and cyber bullying within the community. To provide education and prevention resources to ECISD by providing information, open communication and more to all parties involved, an email from group organizer Amanda Provence said.
The community is invited to attend weekly group meetings between parents, City Council representatives, and representatives from ECISD, the email said.
Group meetings will be held every second Wednesday of each month at Connection Christian Church, 4241 Tanglewood Lane. A gathering was held June 8. ECISD Board member Chris Stanley, Mayor Javier Joven and a representative from state Republican Rep. Brooks Landgraf's office were on hand.
The tentative meeting dates for the remainder of the year are July 13, Aug. 10, Sept. 14, Oct. 12, Nov. 9, and Dec. 14.
If these dates change, or if the location of a meeting changes, that information will be made available on our Facebook.
WTPAB officials say the topic of bullying can lead to emotionally charged meetings, however, attendees are expected to remain respectful of others in attendance.
The email said "each meeting will touch on the progress of any grievance filed through ECISD's website, addressing any bullying incidents, sharing ideas on how ECISD can help mitigate the epidemic of bullying plaguing the district, as well as discussing any bonds, grants or donations that can be used to help educate or train ECISD students and staff."
During a June 8 meeting, Provence said without change and people speaking up, children will have to keep living through bullying and experiencing the trauma. Provence said she lost her brother to suicide in October 2011.
"It was in part because of bullying. There's never one cause for suicide. That's a very important thing to remember. But because of that, bullying is at the center of a lot of suicide prevention efforts. That's where my heart is in this ...," Provence said.
She said she has some programs for young children and teenagers around mental health, but that are age appropriate.
Provence also is the chair of the West Texas Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
A parent at the meeting spoke about how their children had suffered through bullying at ECISD, enduring dislocated bones, and sexual assault, but going through the process went nowhere.
Some reports were never investigated and the advocacy could come back on them in some instances.
"What we're hoping for is that this group can coalesce around a training program that, again, we can give to you, that we can give to the county. And again, it's an educational process. We all have to be aware of the past. We want to try and stop this in the future. And the way it's going to stop is by education and training, and then making sure everybody's on the same page so that there's no misunderstanding of when something like this happens what do we tell the victim?" ECISD Board member Chris Stanley said. "..You're hearing victims being denied information about how to help them and and it's a specific person in some cases. It's a specific bureaucracy in other cases, and we're better than that," Stanley added.
From a conflict resolution perspective, the missing piece of this puzzle would be an ombudsman, Stanley said, an intermediary that works between the two to expedite the issue. And again, that costs money, but if that's going to lessen the amount of time that it takes and bring the truth to light quicker than that's money well spent ...," Stanley said.
He added that one of the things he appreciated about the group is their willingness to share so you can see where the holes are and whether those holes are provided by a third-party group or whether they're provided internally, the process ... is cumbersome. It wasn't designed to be expedient. What we're seeing now is that the problems that we possibly weren't dealing with in the past ... but the problems that we're seeing now, today, and we can guess, in the future are going to require more expediency; social emotional learning. We know that the kids are already hurting," Stanley said.
Stanley added that there are fight sites online where people can view videos of fights.
"We have to be able to respond as fast as social media can," he said.
Stanley said the blame game is easy, but building bridges is harder. He endorses getting everyone directly engaged.
When you see where the fights are happening, they're outside after school and if you put teachers and parents in specific places, you can minimize the incidents.
