U.S. Senator Bob Casey Introduces Anti-Bullying Bill
By: Eric Deabill
Updated: March 11, 2013
Dunmore, Lackawanna County - Bullying in schools is not a new issue but the efforts of Pennsylvania's senior senator, who is looking to crack down on it, are new.
Saying that now is the time for action, U.S. Senator Bob Casey has just introduced a new anti-bullying bill in Congress.
Senator Casey says a lot of school districts across the state and nation are not confronting the problem. He says his bill would have three main focuses: prohibiting bullying, preventing it and helping to keep better records of it.
"It's not like it's a problem, it's just that certain people like to think that they're better than others," tenth grader Carly Tallo at Dunmore High School said.
Students in the Dunmore School District are doing everything they can to stop the issue of bullying. They've even created a club, the FOR club, aimed at stopping it.
"It stands for FRIENDS OF RACHEL and what we do is we just go out of our way to do random acts of kindness for everyone," seventh grader Aislinn McDonald said.
In a world of Facebook and Twitter, kids say bullying is a 24-7 problem and isn't just confined to school walls.
"Kids that don't have the courage to bully in school will go home and, what I like to call, they put on their Facebook muscles and they'll go and pick on someone on Facebook or Twitter," student body president Griffin Gerchman said.
Enter U.S. Senator Bob Casey. He came to Dunmore Monday to explain the bill he just introduced. It's called the "Safe Schools Improvement Act" and would require schools that get federal funding to create codes of conduct that specifically prohibit bullying and harassment.
"If more schools do this on their own, there wouldn't be the need for the bill but we have to confront this in a very direct way because it's a different and more challenging problem than it was when I was growing up," Senator Casey said.
The bill would also require schools to put together bullying prevention programs and would require states to keep information on incidents and make it available to parents and the community.
"I get anywhere from three to five calls a week on bullying from parents, either self-reporting or calling about a child of their own or they may be calling perhaps about one of their children's friends," guidance counselor Kimberly Ahern said.
