Schools Failing When It Comes to Bullying, Violence Prevention

/PRNewswire/ -- Key to a child's successful education is an environment in which he or she can learn safely. According to a report released today by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, only 26 percent of parents would give their child's high school an "A" for preventing bullying and school violence, and 38 percent of parents would give their child's elementary or junior high an "A."

"Children who are victims of bullying can have serious health effects, including physical injuries and emotional problems such as depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and actions," says Matthew Davis, M.D., director of the poll and associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at the U-M Medical School. "Unfortunately, in the United States, we've seen some tragedies in the past few years regarding episodes of school violence that have gotten a lot of media coverage and upset many parents."

In the U.S., an estimated 160,000 children miss school every day out of fear of attack or intimidation by other students, according to the National Education Association. Since 1992, there have been 250 violent deaths in schools, and bullying has been a factor in many school shootings.

"What this poll shows is that parents are still very concerned about bullying in their schools. About three-quarters of states nationwide have implemented bullying prevention laws that are designed to encourage, and in some cases force schools to present and deliver bullying prevention curriculum to students," says Davis, who is also an associate professor of public policy at the U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. "But based on these findings, it doesn't appear that those curricula or programs are working effectively."

The poll asked 1,087 parents across the U.S. in May 2009 to assign their child's school an A through F grade in five categories: overall safety, building security, bullying and school violence prevention, keeping students safe during a school-wide emergency, and keeping parents informed in the event of a school-wide emergency.

Parents grades for other school safety concerns:

-- Overall safety: 59 percent of parents would give their child's primary
school an "A," while 33 percent of parents would give their child's
secondary school an "A."
-- Keeping parents informed in a school-wide emergency: 64 percent of
parents would give their child's primary school an "A," while 46
percent of parents would give their child's secondary school an "A."
-- Keeping their child safe during a school-wide emergency: 62 percent of
parents would give their child's primary school an "A," while 36
percent of parents would give their child's secondary school an "A."
-- Building security: 49 percent of parents would give their child's
primary school an "A," while 33 percent of parents would give their
child's secondary school an "A."

What parents can do

Parents who have concerns about bullying in their child's school can get involved in a few ways. Davis suggests parents become active in local safe school and safe community programs where bullying and violence prevention programs already exist.

In the few states where bullying prevention programs do not exist, Davis suggests parents get involved in the legislative process by advocating for bullying programs to be put in place using other states as examples.

"But right at home, there's a way for parents to make a difference too," he says. "Parents can listen to their kids who are their eyes and ears in the schools, especially about issues of bullying. It can be really hard for children to bring up the topic of bullying so parents may need to ask directly about it and make home a safe place to talk about this important problem."

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Laws? Department of Education Forgot Their Homework

TT Note: Guess the Department of Education forgot to do its own homework when the powers up in the White House decided to provide their controversial classroom assignment on writing letters. Maybe they should take their own advice and do their own homework on the laws of the land.

White House Withdraws Call for Students to 'Help' Obama
FOXNews.com

The Obama administration is rethinking its course recommendations for students ahead of President Obama's address to the the nation's schoolchildren next week, rewriting its suggestions to teachers for student assignments on how to "help the president."

White House aides said the language was supposed to be an inspirational, pro-education message to America's youths, but its unintended consequences were evident......http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/03/white-house-withdraws-students-help-obama/

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Concerned for Your Child's Asthma? Pollution Near Schools May Be the Problem

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The nation's focus has returned to the safety of our schools with the second article by USA TODAY in a series on school siting. Working closely with the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), USA TODAY examined the environmental danger of a school located in the shadow of one of our nation's largest oil refineries. Wyandotte Early Education Center serves local 4 year-olds, whose developing lungs are particularly susceptible to the sulfuric acid, naphthalene, ammonia and benzene that the ExxonMobil plant belches into the surrounding air.

The refinery has already been fined by the EPA for failing to monitor and control sulfur gasses that can cause respiratory illness as part of $6.1 million dollars in penalties levied against ExxonMobil last week. Meanwhile, local doctors take note of unusually high rates of asthma and respiratory illness among students.

"Asthma is a direct result of air pollution and asthma is the number one reason for school absences," said Lois Gibbs, Executive Director of CHEJ. "Industries that are permitted to release toxics into the air must be monitored very carefully and, if in violation, brought into compliance immediately. Too often the industry gets away with violations over and over again without serious penalties. We protect our children by law with seat belts, car seats, bike helmets, and from negligent and abusive parents - toxic pollution should be no different." CHEJ recommends adopting the following model laws for states and as guidelines for the EPA http://www.childproofing.org/school_siting_model_legislation.htm

In December 2007, President Bush signed Subtitle E of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, instructing the EPA to develop the nation's first-ever school siting guidelines to give state legislatures direction in where schools may be physically located in relationship to toxic contamination sites. The EPA has been given a deadline of June, 2009. Nothing has been done since congress passed this directive. No one has even been given the responsibility for this task.

Meanwhile, communities struggle to relocate schools away from industrial plants emitting toxic levels of air pollutants. USA Today had identified over 20,000 of these schools located within a half mile of a major industrial plant.

"No one should have to file a lawsuit to ensure that their kids go to school on sites that are weren't used for the disposal of hazardous waste," says Steve Fischbach of Rhode Island Legal Services who has fought legal battles to pass rudimentary school siting guidelines in Rhode Island.

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USA TODAY Special Report Investigates Impact of Industrial Pollution on America's Schools

TT Note: Sounds fascinating. With all the focus on keeping our children safe at school.......

/PRNewswire/ -- USA TODAY, the nation's top-selling newspaper, launches an investigative series today called "The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools." The special project looks at issues such as why children are vulnerable to toxic chemicals and, using the government's own data and modeling software, points to schools which appear to be in toxic hot spots. The series, which took eight months to produce and will run through the month, can be found at smokestack.usatoday.com.

An interactive database of nearly 128,000 schools featured online at smokestack.usatoday.com shows how emissions of toxic chemicals may affect the air at schools across the country. It also shows how schools rank in their exposure to cancer-causing and other toxic chemicals. The database is modeled on information reported to the government by 20,000 industrial plants. The series also offers information on how Americans can learn more about the air outside their schools and do something about it.

In Part I of the "The Smokestack Effect," which appears today in the newspaper and online, USA TODAY compares what the model shows to what the State of Ohio found after it monitored the air outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary School in Addyston, a Cincinnati suburb. In 2005, Hitchens was closed after the Ohio EPA found levels of carcinogens 50 times higher than what the state considers acceptable. The chemicals were emitted from a plastics plant across the street from the school. USA TODAY found that the air outside 435 schools nationwide may be even worse than the air was outside Hitchens when it closed. Those schools, identified by the government's own data and model, extended from East Coast to West, in 170 cities across 34 states.

USA TODAY also worked with the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health to take "snapshots" of the air at almost 95 schools in 30 states. The series will continue on Tuesday with a look at what USA TODAY discovered and what experts say needs to be done to help parents and school districts know for certain what's in the air outside schools.

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