8th Grade Bully/Harassment Survey 2016

Please take a moment to take the following survey. Do not start the survey until Mr. Barry is done explaining the survey. Thank you and have a great weekend! (Maybe the last warm weekend of 2016!)

2016 6th Grade Bully/Harassment Fall Survey

Students, please take a moment to take this very important 10-question survey you see listed below. Thank you!

8th Grade Bully/Harassment Fall 2015 Survey

Students, please take the time to answer the following 10 questions about bullying and harassment. Your answers will be kept anonymous and confidential. We want to know more about bullying and harassment in our building and hearing from students is the best way possible to do this. When finished, click the "submit" button. Thank you!

7th Grade Bully/Harassment Survey

    Students, please take the time to answer the following 10 questions about bullying and harassment. Your answers will be kept anonymous and confidential. We want to know more about bullying and harassment in our building and hearing from students is the best way possible to do this. When finished, click the "submit" button. Thank you!

6th Grade Bully/Harassment Fall 2015 Survey

  Students, please take the time to answer the following 10 questions about bullying and harassment. Your answers will be kept anonymous and confidential. We want to know more about bullying and harassment in our building and hearing from students is the best way possible to do this. When finished, click the "submit" button. Thank you!

4th Grade Bully/Harassment Survey: Spring 2015

Students, please take time to answer the following 10 questions about your experiences in Hartford Upper Elementary the past 7 school days. Be as honest as possible as the survey is anonymous and the data is extremely important for us to understand what the student experience is like when it comes to bullying and harassment issues. Click Submit when you are finished and begin on today's assignment.

Bullying in Sports: National High School Coaches Convention

I'm excited to have the opportunity to present to coaches from across the country today who have an interest in learning more about bullying and how they can be a big part of the effort to stop bullying before it happens. Here is a version of the powerpoint that I am presenting today. I am not sure if the links work and if the background formatting came through like I hoped, but I may edit it later to fix these. Thank you!

Bullying presentation for National Coaching Convention

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Bullying Infographic

  Lots of great information contained within these 4 infographics about Bullying. Take some time to look through them. School may be out for the summer, but bullying can and does still occur. The difference is that parents, friends, peers, and community members will see it more often and need to step in and stop it.

Student Bullying  infographic

The Truth About Bullying infographic by iLanskiii.

Zero Tolerance: Stopping Student Bullying infographic

6th Grade 2013 Spring Bully/Harrassment Survey

If you are a 6th grader taking Mr. Barry's Life Skills class, please take the brief survey below. Your honesty in this survey is extremely valuable to Mr. Barry, Ms. Flagor, and our school district when it comes to dealing with the issue of true bullying in and around our school building. Thank you!

Nutshell and Utah Education Network's Short Internet Safety Videos are Pretty Good!

   Through a blog I recently read, I learned about the website called Nutshell. It has lots of short animated videos about things people don't understand. In other words, they explain a concept or idea in a "nutshell". Well, the blog I read focused on a portion of the site that schools, counselors, and parents may appreciate. The Utah Education Network has produced and is still producing Internet safety, etiquette, and proper usage videos. I just watched a couple and thought they were pretty good, even for the high school age. If you have kids at home and don't understand something about the Internet, you could watch these videos and then have your kids watch them. Or watch them together. They are not very detailed, but the get the general idea across, in a "nutshell". Lots of other videos on the site that could be of interest, but I am posting the link directly to the Internet safety videos as well as the link to the Nutshell homepage. Enjoy

Utah Education Network Internet Safety Videos click here!

Nutshell home page click here!

Planet Nutshell | Web Videos | Explainer Videos | Educational Videos: NetSafe Episode 1: What is the Internet? (Grades K-3)

Parents Information Site About Teens, Technology, and the Online World

I came across this website hunting for a technology video and after looking around I realized that it is a pretty good resource for parents. I did not look at everything on the site, but I thought the videos had lots of good topics and were pretty straight forward. Very informative for a parent who may not know what exactly their child is doing with technology or why they are doing it. Then, there is a blog attached to the site where general interest stories are posted. The site really wants to connect teens with parents and bridge the technology gap between the two. Also has some information on bullying and cyberbullying, which is always great! Please click on the two links below, the parts of the website I liked the most!

Teach Parents Technology! (TPT): Videos to teach parents about the technology their teens are using. Click here!

Home page for the parent portion of the website. Great articles and videos here too. Click here!


Website is called A Platform for Good.Org

Mr. Barry Attends Governor's Bully Summit!

  Mr. Barry had the opportunity to attend and be a panelist at this past week's Governor's Bullying Prevention Summit here in Des Moines. It was a great event with a sold out crowd of 1200, nearly half of them students wanting to make a difference. Mr. Barry representing school counselors of Iowa on the Cyberbullying panel. All of the panels and keynote presentations were recorded and broadcast live online. They will soon be posted so anyone can view them at anytime. When this happens, I will post the links so you can see the great information that I got to see when I was there. 

   Biggest thing I learned from the conference was that the problem of bullying is a large and complex problem that will take efforts from everyone to solve it. Not just teachers, but students, parents, community members, everyone. And most of the experts who spoke and even the student experts who spoke, agreed that the group that can have the biggest effect are the students. Solutions to bullying created by and led by the students have the best chance to solve the problem of bullying. In fact, many students from schools all over the state produced videos showing their ideas and these ideas were some of the best ideas I have seen in my years as a counselor. Seeing these student videos and seeing all of the students in attendance at the Summit gives me great hope that we will finally turn the tide with bullying and begin to solve the issue and make all of our schools safe again.

Great Article Explaining the Difference Between "Rude", "Mean" and "Bullying"

  Another counselor sent this article to me this weekend and after reading it, I figured I would post it here as I think it is a pretty good explanation of the differences between kids being rude and mean and kids who are actually bullying. Bullying is a nasty, nasty thing that some kids do. But it does not happen as much as media sometimes portrays it. Knowing the definition of bullying and being able to identify it is one of the first and most important steps in stopping the problem of bullying inside and outside of schools. Please give this article a quick read.

Rude, Mean, and Bullying....the Difference click here!

Six Iowa Teens Charged in Sexting Case

  KCCI reported on a story today about some Iowa teens who were arrested and charged in a "sexting" case. Just another reminder that what some teens think is a harmless or funny thing to do with a cell phone, can be damaging and embarrassing for the victim, but also be against the law for the teens who send the picture message. I see stories like this from Iowa once or twice a year and it is a good reminder for our own teens to not only think before they speak, but also think before they send.

Click here to read the story.

Stomp Out Bullying Day: Monday, October 1st

     We are asking staff, students, and community to wear blue on Monday, October 1st, to show our united effort to stomp out bullying in our schools and community. In fact, we will use the whole week to raise awareness about the problem of bullying and the long term and possibly deadly effects bullying can have on a young person. Our district counseling staff has been and will continue to get data from students, staff, and parents by using surveys. This data will not only include questions about bullying, but questions about a wide-range of needs a student, staff member, or family member may have. As a team, we then review this data and fine tune our plan to address these needs. With a problem like bullying, counselors and teachers cannot solve it on their own. We need the help of students and families as well. Mr. Barry and Ms. Flagor went to a special showing of the much-talked about documentary "Bully" this summer and participated in an hour-long post-movie conversation. The last statement, made by a high school, student really drove home the issue and solution of bullying. She said "Teachers can try all they can. Parents can try all they can. People can make laws and rules and hang up signs and have special days. But in the end, the solution to bullying is with the students. Students must step up and say this isn't right and bullying is a terrible thing. Students listen to students. So when students start sticking up for each other, only then can we truly solve the issue of bullying." I believe she is right. We can all make a difference, but we all need to plant the seed in a child's head about how terrible bullying can be and teach them strategies to avoid being bullied and how to stick up for others who are being bullied. And then we just hope that seed grows and spreads among all students. So, please wear blue on Monday, October 1st and show your support for our efforts in Stomping Out Bullying. Please see the websites below for more information.

 Stomp Out Bullying website

Stop Bullying.gov

Autism and Bullying, a CNN story

   Thank you to a middle school parent who emailed me a CNN article about students with autism and the higher likelihood of those students being targets and victims of school bullying. Please click on the link below to read the article in full and as a parent or reader of this blog, feel free to email me anytime with stories, information, etc. that you think I might be interested in or that readers of this blog might be interested in.

    As for the article, I have done some research on this and took a class last spring that gave me similar information. And it is not just autism, but also Asperger's, some learning disorders, and students with ADD/ADHD. These students may appear just like any other student, but may have some different behaviors. And middle school kids sometimes struggle with students who look like them, but don't act like them. They cannot always process this difference as just a normal difference in life and this can translate into teasing, or possibly worse like bullying. Like I said above, click this article to read more about this issue. Thanks!



 CNN article about Autism and Bullying click here!

Bullying: What is It? What Isn't It? How Has it Changed in a Generation? And How Can it be Stopped?

  Quite a mouthful, huh? Since we are beginning another year of school, I wanted to write a blogpost that covered everything I could think of about bullying, or at least the main points since Bullying is such a large topic, full length books don't even cover it all. But as a counselor, I think the most important points to hit are the ones in this post's title:

• What is Bullying?
• What is Not Bullying?
• How Has Bullying Changed Since We Were Kids?
• How Can Bullying be Stopped or Limited?

    So, first of all, what is Bullying? Here is a pretty standard and accepted definition:

•     Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. (StopBullying.gov)

   It goes on to say that the behavior must be aggressive, have an imbalance of power, and be repetitive or potential to be repetitive. What I look for to categorize bullying is if the target is affected negatively at the moment and in an extended time period afterwards, is their a threat for more bullying behavior to occur, and how long has this gone on? Middle School is one of the worst areas for bullying behavior because kids are bigger and there is a lot of social power being thrown around. The kids are just discovering themselves and are not very mature about their actions and behaviors. Elementary and High School can have issues as well, but lack of maturity, or finally having some maturity, seem to keep the bullying behaviors at a lower level. Our data shows 7th grade seems to be the peak year. I work with many students after they get into a fight, are in the middle of some friendship drama, or are having a tough time fitting in. But none of these issues are automatically bullying issues, because the repetition and the affects are what is key. But if that same student is seeing me daily or weekly for the same issue and it is not getting better, now we are likely talking about a bullying issue, especially if it is causing the target to have issues in other parts of their life (education, attendance, home, behaviors, etc.)

  So, what is not Bullying then? 

   Well, honestly, most stuff that happens in a school is not bullying. The word "bully" gets thrown around a lot, but not often does an issue classify as a bullying issue. We don't have many fights in our school, but almost all of them are just kids having a bad day or getting caught up in the moment. Very rarely are they a bullying issue. In fact, most bullies prefer to not be physical because it is too easy to be caught. True bullies are very good with persuasion, negative words, and generally bothering you without ever touching you. I always tell students that bullies will sometimes mess with you enough that you will hurt yourself, so they don't have to. Sad, but true. Teasing is pretty normal and pretty common in school. Sadly, so are rumors. But what I have found is that teasing is usually between friends or 'somewhat' friends and the rumors usually die out after a day or two and a new rumor about a different student is active. This is life and has gone on since the dawn of time. Doesn't mean we don't still try to deal with it and there may even still be consequences, but these issues still don't classify as bullying behavior. They can turn into that if they persist day after day and are repetitive and a pattern of teasing/rumors forms. Also, if the effects on the target are severe and affect their well-being here at school on a day-to-day basis, now we could have a bullying issue. But generally, hundreds of issues pop up every day. Sometimes none of those are bullying issues, just teens being teens and some being too mean. Hopefully, I, as the counselor, can work with the students to clear those issues up. 

   So if Bullying issues are only a small part of the school day, why all the talk? Bullies were around when I was young, what has changed?

   Great question....a lot has changed! The biggest changes I see are these two:

• Technology makes bullying 24/7
• Exposure to Media means kids have more mature experiences yet still immature in thinking

    What this means is when we were young and people were mean, it was all better for the most part at 3:30 when we got home. Mom or Dad made us some milk and cookies, we cried a bit, and then we went to bed happy. Not so today. That same teen today goes home and likely gets 10 text messages on the way home, possibly all of them reinforcing the mean comments he/she heard during the day. Then, they log into their facebook account to play a game to get away from it all and their wall has been bombarded with hateful words and images. Parents might be working and their school friends and staff are at their own homes. This leaves our young teen brain alone with negative thoughts. Things can escalate very quickly, especially if the teen tries to respond to the comments, and very soon we could have a crisis situation. In my "former life" as a science teacher at our high school, one scary fact I remember is that the last part of the brain to develop is problem solving and long-term planning/logic. This doesn't develop fully until almost age 20. So, our young teen brain is getting bombarded with hateful messages without the ability to properly problem solve and think "Ignore. Block. Delete. Don't listen to them. Listen to Music. Life will get better. You have friends. You have family. Etc." So when we used to get away from bullying by literally getting away, today's teen cannot. And before you say "Just don't let them have a phone or use Facebook", be careful. That is punishing the target and not letting them develop coping and problem-solving skills they will need when life gets even tougher. Teens are social beings and one of the biggest social activities and ways to stay connected is social networks, cell phones, and texting. Take these away and your child could be even more damaged then they were when they were being bullied. But, limits to these help and knowing skills like blocking, ignoring, and deleting, as well as printing and saving the online posts for evidence work great. I knew one student who got mean and hateful texts all through the night and was up all night getting these texts. A simple suggestion of turning off his phone at night or leaving it in the kitchen could have fixed that. But to convince this teen to get away from a social connection like their phone for even the bedtime hours took some convincing!

    And as to the other point, our kids today get exposed to violent, mature images, words, concepts all the time. Even when we limit them, they still get it in one form or another. And again, their brain can't process all of this, so they truly do not understand how hurtful some of these words or actions can be. It doesn't always hurt when they hear or see them on TV, so why would it in real life? 24/7 media via Internet, cable/satellite TV, and the radio keeps pushing these things to the kids and some of it then gets pushed on each other in the heat of the moment. 

  Wow....so how do we stop Bullying?

  Well, I don't think it can truly be stopped, but it can be prevented as much as possible. It takes EVERYONE's help though. A counselor can work with both bullies and targets to give them skills so it doesn't happen again. Parents can monitor their child's phone and social network some and yet still respect their privacy. Parents, teachers, and any adults can model correct behavior and understand that if a child/teen sees parents fight in an unhealthy manner (name-calling, aggression, etc), adults yelling at the opposing team or the umpires, or adults bad-mouthing each other (even in politics!!), that a child/teen will learn from this and learn it is acceptable behavior. Even if deep down we all know it should not be acceptable. But when I went to watch the Bully movie and stayed for the hour-long discussion afterwards, the best solution was given by a student at the very end of our discussion. She said "We can all talk about stopping bullying. We can make signs. Adults can try their best to monitor their teens. And we can even make laws. But honestly, it is up to the teens themselves. They are the ones that have to stand up for each other and say Bullying is not right and is not acceptable. Only then will we truly make a difference because teens listen to teens." That might have been one of the bigger ovations I have heard in some time. She was right. She was so right! But....we must all still work together and do our part and get the teens talking about this and spreading the message that Bullying is not normal, teen behavior....it is hateful, mean behavior that can have long-lasting effects. And if we can't stop it, we must work together to limit it.

Phew....that was a long post, at least for me. I have many more ideas on Bullying and will be studying it a lot this year, especially Cyberbullying. I am presenting at the Iowa School Counselors Association Conference in November on the topic of Bullying. I will also be on a panel at the first ever Bullying Prevention Summit in Des Moines at the end of November. Both exciting opportunities. I may also be doing some speaking at some coaching meetings and classes for the state on the idea/topic of bullying in sports. Gonig to be a busy year, but I know a couple things are guaranteed. We will have some bullying issues in our middle school this year (every school has these) and we will have some that are not. But I will work with our staff and students to see if we can resolve each one all while doing some school-wide Bullying Prevention educational ideas as well. Thank you for reading!!

State Trooper Brian Shelley to Speak with Students About Cybersafety

The Carlisle Middle School Counselors are excited to welcome Trooper Brian Shelley to our school over the next 3-4 weeks. During these weeks, Trooper Shelley will get a chance to speak with every 4th-8th grader about Online safety, Cybercrime, Cyberbullying, and other online issues that affect our teens and preteens.

The world is changing rapidly and not even I know all the ins and outs of the internet or internet safety. I talk a lot about the opportunities and dangers of the online world, especially cyberbullying, but I don't always know the latest information, tactics, and safety measures that are out there. Trooper Shelley spends a good portion of his time in schools doing presentations just like these and is great at educating our students about these areas. Due to his schedule and ours, he will only be able to come in once a week, but by January 6th, he will have seen all students once during our Guidance and life skills class.

For more information on what he presents, please visit the website I have listed below to learn about what information he covers and presents. He chooses the appropriate lessons and topics for the age he is talking to. So, what he goes over with 4th graders will likely be very different than the 8th grade presentation.

Netsmartz.org click here!