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Megan Levy and Daniel Robison have seen both sides of bullying.

For Megan, a Del Norte High School sophomore, this included being called “pizza face” for her acne and “Pinocchio” for her large nose starting at about the third grade. She said she was also teased for enjoying school and liking to read.

“I would cry a lot. It made me really insecure,” Megan told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Saturday. “But when I was the bully it made me feel better — I wasn’t the only one who had a big nose or acne or who liked to be at school.”

Daniel said his peers have also teased him because of his acne, starting from about the time he was in seventh grade. Now as a freshman, he said, the bullying continues.

“People think I’m gay and I know I’m not,” Daniel told the Outpost. “I go to my parents, they got upset and went down to the school, but the school didn’t really do anything.”

When Morgan and Daniel learned that most of their fellow participants in Building Healthy Community’s Youth Training Academy had similar experiences, they brought their concerns to Del Norte Unified School administrators and, ultimately, the Board of Trustees.

The Board of Trustees unanimously approved an update to the district’s bullying policy.

“It’s not going to solve the fact that kids are going to be bullied,” Megan said. “But it’s a small step in the right direction.”

According to Amy Campbell-Blair, an organizer with True North who worked with Megan and Daniel, the school district’s updated bullying policy coincides with a state law, Assembly Bill 2291, that requires prevention measures be put into place by December 2019.
Governor Jerry Brown signed that bill into law in September 2018, according to.

Campbell-Blair said she had gone to a school board meeting in August, saw that the bullying policy will be on an agenda and asked if Megan and Daniel could provide input.

Meeting with Kissinger since September, Megan and Daniel helped create a detailed definition of bullying.

Before they appeared before the Board of Trustees, Megan and Daniel spoke with Tom Kissinger, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Their requests included instituting mandatory training on bullying for all district faculty and staff. The updated policy includes language clarifying what bullying is, Megan said.

It also introduces a form of standards by which to measure bullying, Daniel said.

Under the new policy, the measures to prevent bullying including providing student handbooks and other information about district and school rules related to bullying as well as the consequences.

The policy states students are also encouraged to notify staff when they are being bullied or if they think another student is being bullied.

The updated policy also states that students will be able to use a telephone hotline, email address and an online portal for reporting bullying claims anonymously. The information will be posted on the district’s website and on every campus.

When it comes to measuring how effective bullying prevention measures are, the updated policy requires each school to submit a report on the number and type of substantiated cases that occurred during the year. This data will be compared to previous years’ reports to determine effectiveness and will be available to help staff develop bullying prevention programs, services and resource.

The report will be available to the public at a meeting of the Del Norte Board of Education, according to the updated policy.

Though she too says the updated bullying policy is a step in the right direction, Campbell-Blair said the issue itself is bigger than the school district.

“It’s a community issue,” she said. “It’s about relationship building. We never wanted this framed as young people versus adults.”

Campbell-Blair said there is more opportunity for people to get involved in preventing and addressing bullying in local schools. She said those who are interested can call her at (707) 733-3642 or email amyc@truenorthorganizing.org.

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