Lee Cataluna: Schools have changed, but bullying endures

Kids today seem to have it so easy, what with their smartphones and their pillowy memory-foam shoes, their participation trophies and their yoga pants.

To those who lived through an era that wasn’t so enlightened and supportive, today’s youth can seem coddled, swaddled, delicate as hothouse flowers.

But despite all the technological advances students enjoy and ideas of social justice their generation has embraced, despite all the assemblies, poster contests, public service announcements and service projects about anti-bullying, they still get terrorized on the school bus.

Last week, attorney Eric Seitz released a video of his client, a student at Castle High School, being attacked by another girl on a school bus. It’s hard to watch. Even if you were under no false notion this sort of beat-down happened only back in a grittier, meaner era, it’s still shocking to think of such brutality on a school bus, not behind some remote classroom or on a weedy field behind a school, but in the light of day with a driver and a busload of witnesses.

The school bus is almost a stereotypically dangerous place, like a dark alley or a park restroom. Even now. There are websites and national tip lines about bus- bullying. How this continues to happen is mystifying and maddening. Maybe it’s going to take a lawsuit to change things.

True, the main responsibility of the bus driver is to operate the bus safely while taking kids to and from school. So maybe now the Department of Education will need to spend money to hire bus marshals, like air marshals, who ride the bus and maintain order, because that video is so horrific. (Though plenty of grownups who took a bus to school could probably tell you stories to match. I know I can. I was just a witness, but it haunts me to this day.)

Where are the black-belt aunties from the dojo? Maybe they can form a volunteer hui to ride on the bus to keep an eye on things so children can get to school without being assaulted by other children.

Once in school, how safe are these precious children with their Googled homework and their boba tea and reef-friendly sunscreen? We know what it was like back in the day. It got better, right? We’re all smarter and more “woke” in 2018. Or maybe we’re just dazzled by the gadgetry and naive about real-life dangers.

Meanwhile, the Board of Education is carefully mulling anti-bullying guidelines for schools, considering policies and procedures you’d think would have been in place for years already. Mull, mull, study, discuss. Send out a press release when you guys get this thing solved, OK? We’ll be waiting.

Back in the day, we didn’t lean on the word “bullying.” It was called assault or terroristic threatening or beating somebody up — blunt words that describe crimes. Maybe part of the problem is that we’ve mixed in serious physical harm and emotional abuse with smaller playground slights and ignorant word choices and somehow expanded the category while watering down the perception of severity.

It was wrong back then. It’s wrong now. It shouldn’t take lawsuits and horrific videos and mulling to bring about peace in every child’s school day.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.