Bullying a top priority; Lynn schools, police team up for new task force

LYNN – City officials say they are turning up the heat on bullies.The School Department is installing video surveillance cameras in all the city’s secondary schools. The Police Department is merging its Gang Unit and Juvenile Unit into the Youth Services Unit. Dennis Thompson, director of Health and Wellness for the Lynn public schools is overseeing the fledgling Bullying Task Force, and a series of informative sessions are planned to introduce educators to the state’s newly-enacted anti-bullying law.The task force includes educators, guidance and adjustment counselors, school administrators and police officers. A computer program will allow school principals to report incidents of bullying that will be stored in a data base in Thompson’s office.Each of the 24 public schools will also have an appointed bullying coordinator whose job is to train other staff members in the handling of bullying incidents.”The best tool we have is the good relationship between the School Department and the police,” said Lynn Police Detective Lawrence Wentzell of the Youth Services Unit, who along with Patrolman Robert Ferrari, the school safety officer in charge of emergency planning, work most days in the city’s 24 schools.”We’re not just investigating crimes. A lot of times the principal will call us to put out a fire between two kids. We try to head them off,” he said.Once an incident has been reported to the school administration, the two police officers try to determine if a crime has been committed.”Bullying is not a crime on the books,” said Wentzell. “Under the law, the crimes usually involved in bullying are assault, stalking or making threats.”The anti-bullying law mostly establishes procedures for educators who encounter bullying or more serious violations, and what sort of repercussions are most appropriate.”Very often kids don’t really understand that if you write a threat on Facebook or send a cell phone message, it’s the same thing as saying it,” Wentzell said.Ferrari said elementary school students are becoming increasingly involved in these incidents.”We’re seeing fourth- and fifth-graders behaving in a way that seventh- and eighth- graders would have five or 10 years ago,” he said. “It has gone to that level. It is easy because of the electronics and I think they are copy-catting the older kids.”Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett emphasized that technology has changed the playing field for bullies, school administrators and law enforcement officers.”The Internet and other electronic means of communication our children use have presented challenges to educators and law enforcement professionals that we never would have imagined 20 years ago, and it is imperative that we work together,” the prosecutor said.Blodgett, who recently released an educational program called “Think Before You Send: Using Digital Communication Responsibly,” said some types of social networking can easily facilitate bullying.”It’s easier to demean someone when you don’t have to look them in the eye or actually say the words to them,” the prosecutor said. “Posting mean and hateful messages on social networking pages and forwarding inappropriate photographs are just some of the ways that bullying takes place.”According to Boston attorney Richard Cole, a civil rights specialist and consultant on school safety, Massachusetts law defines bullying as “the repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or electronic expression or a physical act or gesture, or combination, directed at the victim.”Cole, who addressed a conference of North Shore educators, social workers and police last week, said such acts must cause physical or emotional harm to the student or result in damage to the victim’s property. The bullying must place the student victim in “a reasonable fear of harm” and create a hostile environment at school for the target student.Cole added that bullying infringes on the rights of victims at school and disrupts the educational proc