Bullying is a nationwide issue and frankly, it’s not getting any better.

States have made laws, principals threaten to punish, but the majority of teens feel that it has no effect.

Bullying happens everywhere, every day. Even at PHS.

We at the Paolite believe that bullying is a common problem in schools, and is a problem that is not being handled well.

Our staff believes that cyber-bullying is the most common form of bullying at our school. We think that people are too afraid to bully someone face to face, so they attack them online. We think that Facebook is the most used website to bullying peers using the actions of rude posts, hateful comments and embarrassing photos. Cyber-bullying through Twitter and MySpace come at second and third for most commonly used for cyber-bullying.

We also think that at our school that face to face bullying is the least common because people are too afraid to say anything to anyone personally.

We at the Paolite also think that the most common ‘symptoms’ of someone who has been or currently being bullied are: depression, thoughts of suicide, lack of association with other peers and shyness. We believe that everyone in high school will be bullied once in his or her high school career.

We think that the punishment for bullying at our school should be just as serious as other offenses. Students can be expelled from school or sent to in-school suspension for acts of bullying, but we feel as though that’s not getting the job done considering bullying is still an everyday problem. We think students committing the bullying should know the seriousness of their bullying and be punished as severely as possible.

We also think that is you are a victim of a bully, speak up! Don’t take the emotional abuse, tell your friends and adults and let people know this treatment isn’t right and needs to stop.

And if the bullying is happening online, unfriend and block that person, they can’t bully you if you can’t see them.

Opinions of the Paolite Staff