By GREGORY ZELLER //
With the 2023-24 school year set to begin, Long Island educators and victim-advocacy leaders are proactively preparing high-schoolers to battle cyberbullies.
The Safe Center Long Island, a Bethpage-based 501(c)3 nonprofit providing abuse-victim services, presented a back-to-school safety program Thursday for rising freshmen and other new students entering Malverne High School this fall. The program focused specifically on bullying via digital technologies including social media, message boards and gaming platforms.
The interactive session – one of several The Safe Center is conducting this summer at schools throughout Nassau County – shared techniques students can use to protect themselves from bullies both online and in-person. It also emphasized a see something/say something approach to protecting fellow students from digital intimidation.
Jennifer Rowland: Easing burdens.
Cyberbullying has become a bane of the digital age, with a 2019 supplement to a National Crime Victimization Survey prepared by the National Center for Education Statistics estimating that 16 percent of nationwide high schoolers had experienced some form of online bullying.
A 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found virtually the same thing, reporting that 15.9 percent of U.S. high schoolers were electronically bullied in the 12 months prior to the survey.
With numbers like that – and cyberbullying increasingly linked to adolescent suicide – it’s important that incoming freshmen and other students know how to protect themselves and “stick up for other people who are being bullied,” according to The Safe Center Director of Education Jennifer Rowland.
“It’s not something that stops when kids leave school,” Rowlands noted. “It’s 24-seven.
Kesha Bascomb: Safety first.
“They have enough to deal with being teenagers … we don’t want them suffering from online bullying as well.”
Open to both incoming students and their parents, Thursday’s program was also designed to help young leaners rebuild some of the fundamental interpersonal skills that eroded during nearly two years of pandemic-flavored remote learning – and in some cases have been slow to return.
By partnering with The Safe Center to reinforce basic interpersonal skills – and providing useful tools and techniques to combat cyberbullying – Malverne High School is giving its students a running start toward positive learning experiences, according to Principal Kesha Bascomb.
“We try to set the foundation for the school year and deliver positive and important information,” Bascomb added. “We want to talk about cyberbullying, online safety and mental health so that they understand how to be safe.”
