At Laurel Valley Elementary, they call it RAMS (for Respect Always Matters in Society), and Principal Victoria Hazlett brought the parents in from the outset.
"One neat thing about the training," Dr. Hazlett recalls,"was the role playing. The parents were put in the position of the staff members who work with the kids. That's when they said, 'Wow, this isn’t as easy as I thought.' After that, there was a lot of parent buy-in."
With school bullying an epidemic — nationwide, a child is bullied every seven minutes, and 160,000 children miss school daily because they fear bullying — the Highmark Foundation brought the internationally renowned Olweus bullying prevention program into schools through Highmark Healthy High 5 HALT!
At Laurel Valley, they created a template of bullying behaviors, bullying report slips and constant monitoring of student behavior. Each year, they have a kick-off RAMS assembly. This year, the high school football team came to talk to the other students about bullying.
That good start is followed every Friday by 30-minute class meetings building positive relationships. There’s a RAMS award every month, with winners getting their photos posted on the school bulletin board — and receiving Ponderosa restaurant gift certificates.
It’s working. "In the two years before we had this program," Dr. Hazlett says, "I had calls all the time about bullying. I rarely get them anymore. The parents have a much better understanding about the prevention of bullying. The parents, students and staff are all on the same page, and they all speak up when they observe bullying taking place."
To learn more about how to recognize and prevent bullying, see our extensive Bullying Prevention pages.
Learn more about Highmark Healthy High 5 HALT! — a bullying prevention program designed to build upon the nationally recognized, evidence-based Olweus Bullying Prevention Program.