Local Mom Teaming Up with School to Fight Back Against Bullying

Ashli Sims, The News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Experts said as many as one in four children are bullied. That's why one local woman is joining forces with her school to fight back against bullying, and she said it's not just the children who need to listen up.

Prosecutors in Massachusetts said 15-year-old Phoebe Prince was "tortured" and bullied on a "daily basis" before she committed suicide.

Now prosecutors are going after nine of her classmates who they say drove the girl to suicide.

"The events of January 14 were not isolated. Rather they were the culmination of a nearly three month campaign of verbally abusive assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm towards Phoebe on school grounds by several South Hadley High School students," said Elizabeth Scheibel, Massachusetts District Attorney.

Phoebe's story is the kind that will stop any mother's heart.

"Bullying is a situation that is everywhere and it needs to be addressed," said Karen Gilbert, a Tulsa Public School parent.

Gilbert said bullying has now gone high-tech and is happening 24-7.

"It's just not that kids are being bullied at school, but also at home, on the Internet, text messaging, Facebooking, MySpace, all that stuff," Gilbert said.

And the number of students punished for bullying continues to grow.

Tulsa Public Schools reported in the first semester of 2008, there were 25 suspensions of high school students for bullying. For the same time period in 2009, the number doubled to 51, and last semester it had jumped again to 67.

Gilbert has teamed up with Tulsa's Byrd Middle School and the Citizens' Crime Commission to call on parents to put a stop to bullying.

"Make them aware of not just, is your child a victim of bullying, but is your child a bully?" Gilbert said.

Experts said prevention and early intervention are the answers, and parents need to make sure their children know bullying is never OK.

"That they will actually sit down and talk to their kids, because that's the key to it all, parents building a better relationship with their child," Gilbert said.

One local mother said schools in the Tulsa area are making progress on school bullying. She said her son killed himself after being tormented by his classmates, nine years ago. Back then no charges were ever filed. Now the mother said the fact that the teens in Massachusetts are facing criminal charges proves people are taking bullying seriously.