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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
September 7, 2023     Shelton Mason County Journal
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September 7, 2023
 
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Page 8 - Shelton-Mason County Journal ~ Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023 Backto V School ngesfival Hundreds of Shelton School District students, their siblings, parents and guardians attend- ed the district’s Back to School Festival on Aug. 26 at Olympic Middle School. Clockwise from left, Cedar High School Prin- cipal Amber Hosford hands out water on a day when temperatures climbed into the 903. Shelton Police Officer Chris Kostad hands out stickers. Students put discs into the Plink machine to win prizes at the Our Community Credit Union booth. Journal photos by Gordon Weeks Bullying: Districts say issue is ‘not rampant’ locally continued from page have been the subject of an obscene message on Snapchat, for example, the principal and/or the school coun- selor set up meetings with all the par- ents and seek a resolution, Mallery said. ' Jeff Davis, superintendent of the Pioneer School District, said bully- ing is “not rampant” on the Agate campus, nor does he hear about much cyber-bullying. The district teaches students up to eighth grade, and Da- vis said he hears more about bullying from administrators who have high schools. “The definition ofbullying gets misunderstood,” he said. “It’s targeted behavior, usually (involving) a size difference, repeated over and over.” Employees concentrate on solv— ing conflicts and helping students get along with each other, Davis said. “I think We’re headed in the right direction,” he said. In the Shelton School District “so’ cial media and phones are oftentimes a challenge to some of our bullying,” especially at the secondary schools, Superintendent Wyeth Jessee said. He added, “Things start off in the community and they’re brought into the school.” In response, “We can be reactive or preventative,” Jessee said. “We are in a preventative stance It’s the work up front.” The schools spotlight celebrating students having successes with their peers, Jessee said. “We are really focused on positive experiences every day so bullying gets extinguished,” he said. For Grapeview Superintendent Gerry Grubbs, “a safe bully—free school begins with schedules, man- agement, instruction and supervision that creates an engaging, efficient learning environment,” he wrote in an email to the Journal. “Forward think- ing and planning minimizes the op‘ portunity for misbehavior, and more specifically, bullying.” As for the district response to bullying complaints, Grubbs wrote that “a critical piece of minimizing bullying is through timely, firm, but kind communications from adults about expectations and metering out appropriate consequences as needed. Gerry Grubbs Grapev/ew School District superintendent The closer to the event that the cor- rection is applied, the more effective the response. Within the area of re- sponse we create mechanisms that allow for ease of communication from staff, students and parents to ad- ministration to ensure that problems aren’t ignored.” Children who bully might be re- flecting the actions they see by the adults in their orbit. “We are critical of children who bully, but frankly I see many adults in many environments who engage in bullying behavior,” Grubbs said. “Because it is a human issue and not just a childhood issue, it takes all of us to practice, model and communi- cate practices that minimize bullying everywhere. With this in mind, we have adopted the Character Strong Curriculum that explicitly teaches higher level personal characteristics. As we roll this out to our community, we will be sharing strategies and language that families can use and model at home. We will do this so that the child’s entire environment (teachers, families, students) sur- rounds them with the knowledge and vocabulary of our vision for conduct. The nine characteristics that will be explicitly taught to everyone connect- ed to our school are respect, empathy, cooperation, responsibility, persever- ance, courage, gratitude, honesty, creativity.” The district also conducts Safe Schools Training for all staff members that includes bullying and other for— mal policies and practices, he wrote. Bullying isn’t an issue in the Southside School District, said Super— intendent Paul Wieneke. “We do not have trends of bully- ing at Southside, and have had few, if any, complaints about bullying over the past three years. Students truly care about each other in a posi- tive way,” he wrote in an email to the Journal. “The culture at Southside is an- chored in Hope Science: 1) having goals; 2) having pathways toward goals; and 3) having agency (or the commitment toward owning a positive future),” Wieneke wrote. “Southside teachers teach expected behaviors and social and emotional well—be— ing through the ‘Character Strong’ curriculum.”