Eastern Iowa students take lead in anti-bullying campaigns

 Matt Shankles knows what it's like to be bullied.

The 16-year-old sophomore at Linn-Mar High School endured two waves of abuse in middle school; first after moving to Marion from South Carolina and again after coming out in eighth grade as a gay student.

High school has been more positive so far, but those memories prevented him from staying silent last October when an anonymous Twitter account began spreading hurtful rumors about members of the Linn-Mar student population.

“I connect with the bullied very easily, but this was on such a massive scale” he said. “It was mostly symbolic, but I felt like somebody had to do something.”

Shankles created his own anonymous Twitter account with the screen-name “@Linn_Mar_Love” and began sending messages of positive reinforcement to the students targeted by the rumors - everything from compliments to just asking them if they were OK.

He never regarded the action as significant, but soon his classmates were talking about the Linn_Mar_Love account and speculating who might be behind it. He even caught national attention, being interviewed live on CNN after going public last month on the Marion Patch website.

“All I did was create a Twitter account,” he said. “I knew it was something good, but I didn't think it was a large-scale thing.”

Regardless of his modesty, Shankles' actions show the stigma against speaking out against bullying is eroding, with students across Eastern Iowa taking the leadership in organizing anti-bullying events in districts such as College Community, Lisbon and Clear Creek-Amana.

Increased activism from students is important, but there are other bystanders present in acts of bullying; teachers, parents, and all members of the community, Unless they intervene in the face of abusive behavior, it can continue unchecked, said Allen Heisterkamp, a former Sioux City teacher and school administrator who works with the Waitt Institute and the University of Northern Iowa's Center for Violence Prevention..

The phrase “boys will be boys” or “kids will be kids” used to be heard frequently in conversations about bullying, said Heisterkamp. That attitude has helped it fly under the radar for years. But things are starting to change there as well, according to Heisterkamp.

“People in positions of power are saying together that this is not OK and adding to that students who have permission to be leaders,” he said. “The problem is so pervasive that there's no solution without being pervasive as well.”

The shift could happen a little faster for Jennifer Rowray, whose six foster children attend school in the Benton Community district. Her son, a seventh-grader, was ostracized repeatedly throughout elementary school, an experience that graduated to physical bullying and threats earlier this year. It became so severe, she and her wife were forced to withdraw and open enroll him in neighboring Cedar Rapids.

Rowray does not blame school officials and teachers, who she said were very helpful in trying to put a stop to the bullying. In hindsight, her primary regrets are not having better communication with the parents of the bullies and not knowing enough about the legal frameworks in place to help stop bullying.

“They should have a class for parents at the start of the year and teach what they tell the teachers, that you have to report things and write things down and that the kids have to complain,” she said.

It's part of Nate Monson's job as executive director of the Iowa Safe Schools Alliance, an anti-bullying group formed by the state civil rights commission, to help spread word on how Iowa's 5-year-old anti-bullying law works. Schools are required to investigate claims of bullying and report them to the state, but to help make those investigations effective, Monson's advice to parents, teachers and anyone witnessing bullying is to document everything.

“If there's no proof, what can an administrator do?” he said.

Enforcement of that law can be erratic; some schools have focused on this issue for years, while others are now playing catch-up, according to Monson. toward that end, he feels the law could be strengthened if it included a training requirement for school faculty to help even out those inconsistencies.

“Teachers in training have one human relations class and they throw everything in there including racial issues, gender and economics,” he said. “That one class while in college is the only exposure a lot of people have.”

Both Heisterkamp and Monson agree there is a difference between a simple conflict between students and the destabilizing power shift that takes place with bullies. Monson points to the legal definition of bullying, which classifies it as behavior that places a student in reasonable fear of harm, or interferes with his or her health, academic performance and ability to receive an education, which is a civil right.

Things have gotten better, according to Heisterkamp, but bullying is a behavior our culture always will, and must, struggle to prevent.

“It's much better now than five years ago and will probably be better five years from now, he said. “I think you'll see a lot more consistent policies that looks at culture and climate of school buildings and looks specifically at our role as school citizens.”