Student Letter 1

June 5, 2018
Dear Parent & Community Advisory Board,
My name is Iyona Henderson, and I am a 9th-grade student attending Friendship Academy of
Engineering & Technology. My classmates and I are doing a service campaign on bullying and
we’ve created ways in which your board can help. Bullying can take place inside and outside of
school. It is when someone is being hurt physically or mentally repeatedly without their liking.
Everyone is ultimately impacted by bullying but I think students that lack confidence in
themselves or do not have lots of support and love at home are impacted the most. According to
the American Society for the Positive care of Children (American SPCC), 1 in 3 U.S. students
say they have been bullied at school. This number is way too high and believe it or not it’s kids
suffering right here in our City. My classmates and I want every student to be able to go to
school, learn new things, be succcessful, all while feeling safe. In this letter you will read
suggestions on how we can work together to prevent and/or decrease bullying in Baltimore City
Public Schools.
Parent involvement is needed in our campaign to prevent bullying in our schools. We need
parents to get involved with the PTA in every school. Getting parents involved in the PTA at
their kids school could help prevent bullying by getting the teachers and parents to create
agreements on how they will help out at the school or just with their child. We think during the
summer, your office can communicate with each school to check if they have an active and
operative PTA and assist those schools that do not by reaching out to parents, guardians, and
community members to join and participate. During the year, it would also be helpful if your
organization planned to visit and attend some PTA meetings to discuss with parents how
bullying is affecting the learning for students. In the article titled, “Stomp out the Bullying,” it
states that more youth violence occurs on school grounds as opposed to on the way to school and
43% of students fear harassment in the bathrooms at their schools. As a student, I am disgusted
by the behavior of my peers, but I know that kids my age will continue to bully others as long as
there aren’t real consequences for their actions.
Another way your office can help prevent bullying in schools is to host forums for parents and
families during the year to educate them about the effects bullying has on students. I know most
parents and families don’t understand the obstacles we are faced with every day and how unsafe
most of us feel traveling back and forth home to school and while at school. In these forums,
your team can address the effects the victims of bullying face as well as the bully themselves.
Tons of data and facts show that the reason kids become bullies is that he or she lacks attention
from a parent at home and they lash out at others to get attention. Bullying is also a learned
behavior that can be unlearned with the right supports in place at home and in school. For
victims of bullying, it can cause them to feel alone, depressed, scared, and feel they have
nowhere to turn. Bullying should never be tolerated, and it’s time for our parents, and families to
get involved to protect us.
My last suggestion is for your office to host training for parents and families of City Schools’
students on how to monitor their child's activity on social media. Most bullying and altercations
start on social media and teachers, schools, and parents are usually never aware until something
bad happens. Cyberbullying is a growing problem, and I’ve even been a victim of cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is when people say mean or hateful things, sometimes even threaten you over the
internet; some even call it a silent killer. There was a middle schooler earlier this year that killed
herself because of the bullying she was getting on social media. Your office can make these
training available for all parents of students and you have the resources to invite professionals in
that can educate the parents on how to support their child through cyberbullying and online
etiquette.
Thank you for reading my letter, I hope that you implement my suggestions and we can work
together to end bullying in schools. I can be reached by email at iahenderson@bccpss.org for
more information. Also, please go to Instagram and check out my class’s visual campaign at
@Faet_Nation.

Sincerely,

Iyonna Henderson
 Student Letter 2

June 5, 2018

Dear Mr. John Davis,

My name is Shabria Dunaway and I am a student at FAET #339. This is my first year in high school and
it has been a challenge. Not only has the work been challenging but also the social aspect of high school.
What I have discovered is that bullying is at an all-time high and my classmates and I recognized this and
decided to do an end bullying campaign to bring awareness to the problem. Not only am I and my peers at
FAET effected, but so are students in schools across this city, state, and world. According to the
American Society for the Positive Care of Children (American SPCC), 160,000 students stay home from
school each day due to bullying and we have the power to change that. My class and I want every City
Schools’ student to have a positive experience at school every day and feel safe while they are there. I
know you can help our goal to end bullying in schools by implementing the following suggestions into
the Student and School Operations Support plan.

Each school should be required to have a full-time therapist or mental health specialist that all students
can access. This therapist could counsel victims of bullying and also those that are doing the bullying.
They could lead sessions or assemblies for the entire school to teach us coping strategies and other ways
to positively express our anger or stress and not take it out on others. The American SPCC provided data
showing that schools that have anti-bullying programs, bullying is reduced by 50%. Providing each
school with a therapist for the general population would reduce the amount of violence that occurs in our
schools and make it safer.

Another suggestion to end bullying in schools is to have harsher punishments for repeat offenders of
bullying. According to the National Educational Association (NEA). 282,000 students are physically
attacked in secondary schools each month, and that is both scary and dangerous. After three reports or
instances of bullying, the bully should be suspended for a minimum of three days, their parents should be
required to attend a conference with the therapist, principal, and school police officer before they can
come back to school. They also should be made to do ten additional hours of community service at their
school in a 30 day time span. By creating harsher punishments for bullying, there would be a decrease in
the number of bullying reports filed and student’s would think twice before bullying someone.

Bullying is a problem that impacts so many kids my age but that can stop now! As the Chief of schools,
you have the power to implement these changes and improve our schools because we already have
enough to deal with and being bullied at school shouldn’t be one of them. BCPSS has a responsibility to
keep all its students safe while we are in school and using my suggestions is a start to decreasing daily
harassment and bullying that occur daily.

Thank you, Chief Davis, for reading my letter. Please email me at tweety9440@yahoo.com if and when
you decide to use my suggestions to improve City Schools’. Please also go to our instagram page
(@FAET_Nation) and look our campaign we did at our school to inform our peers.

Thank you,

Shabria Dunawa
 Student Letter 3
June 5, 2018

Dear Mayor Catherine Pugh,

Did you know that a bully, my age, is six times more likely to be incarcerated by the age of 24? Or that
they are five times more likely to have a serious criminal record when they grow up? No? Well I didn’t
know either until my classmates and I started this campaign at my school to end bullying and learned the
severity that bullying has on all of us. My name is Jamal Avery and I am a 15 year-old Baltimore City
resident attending Friendship Academy of Engineering & Technology #339. I was just as shocked as you
probably are right now reading those statistics, which is why we must work together to end bullying in
our schools and community. Bullying is when people use violence or fear to hurt, harm, or intimidate
another person and anyone can become a victim of bullying. As the new Mayor of Baltimore, I know that
you are aware of how much violence and crime occurs here and I know you are working towards making
our city safer. I think a great place to start is in our schools and if you continue to read my letter, I will
offer solutions that will lower the violence in our city.

Addressing bullying in our schools can stop the school-to-prison pipeline which impacts black kids the
most. The U.S. Department of Education has new research that shows the pipeline starts at preschool for
black students and black students represent 31% of school-related arrests. As of recently, bullying and
cyberbullying have been the biggest issues interfering with our learning and safety at school. To address
bullying in schools, I think you should create a program that allows youths to take jail visits. These jail
visits might give students that think it is cool to harass or harm others, a real glimpse of what life would
be like behind bars. Creating a program that would allow for jail visits, can create opportunities for teens
to speak with prisoners and hear their stories on how they would have down things differently and made
better choices. Since most school-related violent and non-violent offenses start from bullying, this
program could be a measure used before entering more black teens into the criminal justice system.

Another way to reduce bullying in schools is by giving our school system more money for non-academic
programs that promote our social and emotional learning. Most students bully others because they have
issue in their own lives and often lack the love and attention from someone at home. By bullying others,
they are getting the attention they are lacking even though it is negative attention. Giving the school
system more money for non-academic programs, students will have outlets to express themselves and
their creativity. They can uncover interests and build self-esteem in a safe and structured environment.
Bullying in schools is not just a school issue, it is an everybody issue because we are the future of
tomorrow. We must put things in place to help in the development of the youth so we can become
responsible and active citizens.

I want to thank you Mayor Pugh for the work you have already done to make our city better and I hope
you consider the suggestions I provided in this letter. I would love the chance to meet you and talk with
you in person because I have even more ideas on how we can improve our community. Please reply to my
letter by emailing me at biggestballer339@gmail.com.

I look forward to hearing from you Mayor Pugh.

Sincerely,

Jamal Avery