EDMOND — Bullying is nothing new, acknowledged Kathleen Duncan as she spoke to members of the Mothers Study Group Monday, but it is very personal for her.

As she shared the story of her middle daughter and the anguish she faced from bullying while in middle school, Duncan said her own mother was a target of bullying in the 1920s, and the constant teasing had an effect on her self-esteem long after the bullying ceased.

Duncan shared her middle daughter’s story with the help of her eldest daughter, Heather Hoffhines. Still an emotional topic for the family 14 years later, her middle daughter told her story through a video recording.

When her daughter was in middle school, the family moved from one home to a larger one in a different neighborhood causing the 11-year-old sixth-grader to form new friendships.

Hoffhines said her younger sister, who was petite, much smaller than the rest of the students her age, and outgoing by nature with a bubbly, happy personality, started withdrawing and her grades started being affected.

“One day I walked into her bedroom and found her crying on her bed and after much coaxing and the promise to not tell our parents she shared with me some of the things that had been happening,” Hoffhines said with emotion in her voice.

Seeing the seriousness of the problem, the then 15-year old Hoffhines shared with her parents what had been going on.

“Her group of friends who lived in her old neighborhood, the popular girls, turned on her and over a period of time became very violent,” Duncan said.

“She was so humiliated she couldn’t tell us what was going on, and she suffered for some time. Her grades suffered and she had become emotionally distraught.”

The girls developed a gang mentality and abused Duncan’s daughter emotionally, verbally and physically before and after school, during lunch break and as they passed in the hall.

The contents of two lockers had been torn up with pages ripped from her textbook and she had been held down while the other girls took candy and money from her. She was shoved, kicked and elbowed in the stomach and back numerous times and she had food thrown on her and she had been tripped when she walked by the girls.

“The old adage ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,’ just isn’t true,” Duncan said.

After being told by school administrators “that is just the way middle school students act and hopefully within a few months these girls would target someone else,” the Duncans requested that more be done.

After interviewing the girls the administrator told the Duncans’ daughter that things were probably going to get worse and she would just have to live through it.

An hour after the interview Kathleen picked her daughter up for lunch. “She was standing at the curb, shaking all over,” Kathleen said. “She jumped in the car, curled up in a fetal position on the floor and started sobbing uncontrollably.”

The Duncans had her evaluated by a professional counselor who advised them she was too traumatized to return to this school environment. She would never feel safe there again.

“That is when we moved her to a private Catholic school,” Duncan said. “Luckily we found the money to pay for private school tuition, unlike many parents who do not have that option.”

Her daughter later transferred to and graduated from Oklahoma Christian School.

Duncan said her daughter loved school and her new friends, became involved as a cheerleader and was in the homecoming court.

In college her daughter received an early childhood teaching degree from Oklahoma Christian University and is now completing her master’s degree in elementary school counseling where she hopes to spend her career helping children in a school environment.

Duncan said it is important to understand this event happened in 1997, before the nation’s consciousness level was raised about bullying, before a bully prevention law or school board policy was passed and before teachers and administrators understood the gravity of this problem. Nor did they receive training in how to recognize and deal with bullying issues.

Duncan said that confronting bullying is a two-part battle.

“On one front your child’s spirit is broken,” Duncan said, “and there is no more frustrating feeling than watching your child be abused.”

“The other front is the fact that the school administration just wants you and the problem to go away.”



bullying acts differ

Duncan told the audience that bullying, an intentional act, happens whenever someone uses his or her power unfairly and repeatedly to hurt someone.

There are different kinds of bullying, Duncan said. They can involve hurting someone’s body or things: hitting, tripping, flicking or thumping; hurting someone’s feelings: name calling, ignoring, sarcasm or leaving someone out; and hurting someone’s friendship: shunning someone, telling lies and ruining a reputation.

Sometimes seemingly minor things like rolling one’s eyes can escalate over a period of time to taunting, name calling, shoving and pushing and more.

“These may seem like minor problems — who cares about notes passed behind your back, or a nasty look, or a party you are not invited to — but they aren’t minor problems to a young girl, and they can have a lasting effect on a girl’s self esteem.

Boys usually bully through intimidation, but girls bully through exclusion, and it is extremely painful,” Duncan said.

“Girls in sixth, seventh and eighth grade are excellent at social alienation — that’s why they are called Mean Girls. Sadly enough there are mean girls in every school.”

Michelle Kingdom, a sixth-grade counselor at Cheyenne Middle School, told the Mothers Study Group she was faced with handling three bullying incidents at school Monday morning.

Kingdom added since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the downturn in the economy, the financial stress on parents and the way they react to it is being felt by many of the children.

“They are like canaries once used in the mines to test for gas ...  trying to tell us to pay attention.”

Suicide and acts of violence including mass murder are recent results of school bullying. Duncan noted the murders of 13 students in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado were perpetrated by their peers, two outcast students who were constantly made fun of and finally snapped. Other acts of school violence are almost always perpetrated by victims of bullying who finally snap, she said.

“We live in such a violent society,” Duncan said. “We see shootings on TV and in the movies and we are desensitized to it.”



response to bullying

After dealing with her daughter’s problem, Duncan ran for school board nine years ago on a platform of the need for the adoption of a Bully Prevention policy, and won. Soon after being elected to the school board, the board passed such a policy in 2002. She is currently vice-president of the Edmond School Board.

Duncan said the state statute requiring all schools to adopt an anti-bullying policy is a step in the right direction, but Edmond Public Schools has gone one step further.

“We have guidance counselors at all levels, including elementary, middle school and high school, who have been trying out various nationally-known anti-bullying programs,” Duncan said.

Counselors at each school choose the program that best meets the needs of the school’s population.

“It’s a process, not a one-size-fits-all proposition,” Duncan said. “We keep trying until we find the right one.”

“This is a serious, serious social issue, and we have to stay on top of it,” Duncan said. “We must be the advocates for our children.”



pmiller@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 171

THE DETAILS

what you need to know



The Details

Bullying facts

Sixty-six percent of youth are teased at least once a month, and nearly one-third of youth are bullied at least once a month. (2002 National Survey of Students Grades 5–12)

Six out of 10 American teens witness bullying at least once a day. (National Crime Prevention Council, 2003)

As many as 160,000 students may stay home on any given day because they are afraid of being bullied. (National Education Association, 1995)

Harassment and bullying have been linked to 75 percent of school-shooting incidents, including the fatal shootings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo., and Santana High School in Santee, Calif. (U.S. Secret Service Report, May 2002)

Those who are bullied are five times more likely to be depressed and far more likely to be suicidal. (Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, September 2003)

One out of every 10 students who drop out of school do so because of repeated bullying. (Oklahoma Health Department, 2001)

Nearly a third of all students aged 12-18 reported having been bullied at school in 2007, some almost daily. (National Center for Education Statistics)

Middle school students, and particularly sixth-graders, are most likely to be bullied on the bus. (NCES)