Get serious about bullying in CCSD

By Kristi Soto, Las Vegas

Thursday, June 26, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

We send our children to school each day with the thought that they will be safe, and we put our trust as parents in the Clark County School District to do its best to protect our kids from bullying while they are at school to keep them from harm.

Every parent’s worst nightmare is that their child is hurt and the parent is unable to help. Bullying is no different. The end result is the same.

I can only imagine what the family of Hailee Lamberth has gone through since her death — a death that was preventable if only a teacher, counselor or nurse had listened when she reached out and asked for help.

I find it appalling that the question “shouldn’t students learn to deal with bullies on their own?” was raised in the May 4 editorial “Together, schools and parents can beat back bullying.”

When children are dealing with bullies, they can feel isolated and alone. It is certainly not a time for them to feel even more alone by feeling abandoned by trusted adults. This is when children need to know that they have someone to turn to for help.

Bullies can be scary. Bullies can be mean. Bullies can cause children who are feeling terrible about themselves to self-destruct.

Schools Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky seems to have some decent ideas with a task force, but what consolation is calling the anti-bullying program a “priority safety issue,” then leaving it up to each individual school to interpret and hopefully enforce?

These words mean little to the children who go to school each day in fear of the bully who waits for them. We need a real, serious, districtwide policy that leaves no room for gray areas and wishful thinking.

If we don’t get serious about the bullying problem in Clark County and hold teachers, administrators and parents accountable for the children involved, we are going to wind up with more children like Lamberth.