Student Facilitated Anti-Bully Program

Minnesota law currently states that each school district should have a policy that addresses all forms of bullying but allows each district to create their own. This past year, the state of Minnesota has begun to scrutinize this legislation with the purpose of studying the extent of bullying in Minnesota schools and developing policies to stop it. Many schools in the state have unfortunately experienced the negative effects of bullying; some such as the Anoka-Hennepin Schools have experienced investigation and lawsuits due to suicides related to bullying (Post, 2012). At Byron Middle School, there has been limited student involvement in the bullying curriculum. This was brought to the attention of the middle school staff by stakeholders. In the last half of the school year alone, three students within 20 miles of the Byron School District committed suicide. Although not believed to be the direct cause, each student had experienced bullying. Bullying is a student experienced problem yet, students are not vastly involved in the process. This leads to the purpose for this capstone project. The intention is to incorporate students into the bullying curriculum currently in place at the middle school, creating the Student Facilitated Bully Project. The program includes a model for the school to implement each year. The goal for the Student Facilitated Bully Project is to ultimately decrease the incidents of bullying in the school. The anticipated outcome is that with student involvement, the incidences of bullying will decrease and students will feel empowered on an individual and group level to prevent bullying