BPG (Bully Prevention Group) has been very busy throughout the year trying to accomplish our goal of preventing bullying around our high school. This group was started by four students who thought that bullying was a very big issue in the small town of O’Neill, NE. This year has been our most active year, and we hope that it will only keep growing. Our group has had meetings every Thursday to talk about the projects we are working on. We started our year off by hosting a kick- off event where we had some games for the Junior High School students to play that had an anti bullying message; some of the games included: Toss Away Bullying and Don’t Break Your Trust. After that we hosted a Mix-up Day where students grabbed a card and sat with the people who had a similar card; we believe that this helps students realize that they aren’t as different from each other as they think. We have also taken several surveys that prove that we are not the only ones who think that bullying is a problem in our school. It’s also a giant problem all over the U.S. For example according to Dan Olweus, National School Safety Center “American schools harbor approximately 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims.” The National Safety Center also said “1 in 7 Students in Grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying.” Our group BPG wants to be in the other half of this equation. We want our students to treat each other with respect and understand that in no circumstance is bullying okay. We refuse to have our school be part of these statistics. BPG members have fun being in the group and enjoy making changes in our school and community. We hope that the group will stay as successful as can be so that kids themselves can control the bullying in our area.
Written by Maranda Winter, Junior at O’Neill High School