Island Voices: DOE falls short in fight against bullying

The Hawaii Department of Education (HIDOE) is under mounting pressure to resolve the bullying epidemic in public schools statewide, but what is actually being done for the students? Mulling over technical edits to the discipline code for months on end simply doesn’t cut it.

Students and parents need to see actual change occurring on the ground and in their day-to-day experiences. It is time for HIDOE to accept this as its kuleana and provide meaningful, institutional transformation that positively impacts the student community.

The solution to this epidemic cannot be to hide behind another Band-Aid fix.

HIDOE Superintendent Christina Kishimoto is right: It should go without saying that bullying is never tolerated in any organization or community, let alone from our educators (“DOE committed to stop bullying,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Sept. 19). But experience tells a different story when it comes to public schools; one of deeply-rooted apathy and ineffectiveness.

It can be difficult to understand that when you look in a mirror, often you see only that which you choose to see.

Touting HIDOE’s guiding principles is a far cry from effective prevention, and nobody can speak to that better than the students themselves — droves of them, in fact, who report rampant bullying and a school staff that provides little to no reprieve.

By dodging responsibility at every opportunity, HIDOE has left students and parents with no mechanism other than to point the finger. If the past is any indication, examples of change have been compelled either by holding up the microscope or lighting a fire – or both for that matter. Why would this be any different?

Across the country there is a shift in what we are willing to tolerate as normal. Children are obligated to attend schools day after day where they face a repetitive cycle of ridicule and violence and complain to school officials who are unwilling or unable to help. Are HIDOE officials really providing all they can to answer their cries?

Nationwide, only about half of all education staff has received training on bullying recognition and prevention. Where does Hawaii land?

If HIDOE is committed to providing students with a safe learning environment it is time to implement real change that begins from the top down. Merely repeating the same forms of punishment which have proven ineffective over the years is not the solution. As Albert Einstein said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

A smartphone reporting app is the type of proactive response that HIDOE desperately needs, but a good place to start is with the victims themselves. Listen to their pleas. Help them before they and others suffer serious harm.

It’s said that experience is the hardest teacher because the test comes before the lesson. It’s only a matter of time before a bullying victim here has access to a weapon and Hawaii experiences the kind of tragic consequences that have occurred elsewhere in schools. Modifying the existing student discipline code and belatedly creating a new complaints process are simply not enough to address this epidemic.

The finger is not pointed out of choice, but desperation.

Honolulu attorneys Kevin Yolken and Eric A. Seitz have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of several students alleging bullying in public schools.