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Most school administrators have more than one story to tell about cyberbullying. They report that victims of cyberbullying experience low self-esteem, peer isolation, anxiety, and a drop in their grades. They note that victims may miss class or other school-related activities. Principals also point to recent high-profile cases where cyberbullying, left unchecked, led to suicide. In response, some schools have created new policies and curbed free speech on the school's computer network and on all electronic devices used during school hours. This article offers practical advice for actions schools can take to curb bullying, ranging from policy development to education.

Good article from AMERICAN SCHOOL on the policies that schools need to have in place to protect both students and teachers from cyberbullies.

Kids can be mean.\n\nIt's a fact of life we've all experienced. Gone are the days, however, when avoiding a bully meant ducking out of the back door at school. Thanks to personal computers, cellphones and instant messaging, it's now easier than ever for children to attack each other, often anonymously.

A group of eight Windsor High School parents will file grievances with Re-4 School district in the wake of an Internet safety assembly that saw one girl leave in tears. The eight parents came together feeling nothing has been done since several high school students and their MySpace pages were used in an Internet safety presentation by Cheyenne Police Department officer John Gay on Aug. 19, the first day of school in the Windsor-Severance Re-4 School District.

Ty Nordic understands the need to inform kids about the dangers of sexual predators on the Internet. But when his 16-year-old daughter was targeted during an assembly at Windsor High School on the first day of school Tuesday afternoon, Nordic was left with plenty of unanswered questions for the presenter whom he said used inappropriate language during the assembly and singled out specific students.

Currently, student non-compliance may result in confiscation of the device and other disciplinary action. But, says Superintendent Dave Jeck, that policy is about to change to keep pace with growing student non-compliance. "Cell phone usage issues were at one time exclusively a high school-middle school problem," says Jeck. "Now there are issues on all levels. We need ... a division-wide policy that makes it very clear that usage during the school day is not acceptable and violations will be dealt with sternly."Jeck is working on an addendum to the current policy -- even though legislators say the school district doesn't have to allow electronic devices on school property at all.

The calls began coming in Monday. A horrified guidance counselor, a teacher, and then a student lit up Boston's new antibullying tip line, telling officials about multiple Facebook pages that featured pictures of female high school students with derogatory and sexually explicit captions beneath them. Students and city and school officials say they have found at least 15 Facebook pages over the last few days that use obscene or hateful language to target female students, as well as a handful of male students, school administrators, and teachers at schools in Boston and surrounding communities. Boston officials have been scrambling to have the pages removed and have been meeting to figure out how to address the apparent cyberbullying and find the culprits. But as the offending Facebook pages come down, new ones go up. School officials and police are struggling to identify the perpetrators, who have been using fake names when they register with Facebook to create the pages. Police say they could pursue criminal charges if they determine that perpetrators have violated victims' civil rights.

Eight Smithfield State High School students who joined a cyberbullying social networking group that branded another girl a "liar" have been suspended. The Smithfield High students, all girls, were suspended for one day and the Facebook group, which had 11 members, was shut down after The Cairns Post was alerted to it before the Easter school holidays. It is understood the Facebook group was started after an argument between friends. Smithfield High acting principal Barry Courtney said the school took a tough stance against any form of bullying."Our response is students who join any cyberbullying site will be dealt with and it is a suspendable offence and parents are contacted about it straight away," he said.

A spat on Facebook over a recent killing might have led to a fight at Knightdale High School last week. Dominique Royster's Facebook page erupted into expletives and insults after Royster called for the release of Mariah Wisdom from jail. After her Facebook posting and the angry response, Royster received death threats on her cell phone. She was kept out of school for several days until emotions cooled, and her parents had a chance to talk to school administrators about the situation. A member of the school staff who deals with disciplinary problems was assigned to shadow her as she went through the day March 26, her first day back at school after the killing. Four students were cited with misdemeanor assault and released to their parents in connection with the attack.

Question posed in a high school newsletter: If a school comes across online material that depicts a star athlete or school government officer engaging in an illegal activity, should they merely ignore it? Surely, one's moral compass would dictate otherwise. Students must be disciplined for their actions in both the real and virtual worlds.

A 14-year old boy was accused of making threats on MySpace, where his page showed a tombstone, satanic references and admiration for the shooters in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, authorities said. Through instant messages on MySpace to another student, he also threatened to lock the cafeteria doors during one of the lunch periods and shoot everyone inside, authorities said. In lieu of imprisonment, the student has been transferred to an alternative facility and is prohibited from logging onto MySpace or Facebook or making contact with students from his former school. The boy's attorney said the boy used his MySpace page to react against intense bullying at the middle school, which left him in fear. The boy has said that one of the bullies threatened to slit his throat.

Is the average high school student able to define social networking or give an example of it? I thought most would use Facebook as an example, but during a recent visit to a local high school, one freshman student used e-mailing his teacher in First Class as an example. Many of his classmates were of the same opinion as he, so it opened up a much-needed conversation during which this classroom full of 20 students spoke about where they preferred to network with each other.

"n 2006, I had the opportunity to conduct focus group interviews with students on the topic of cyberbullying. I partnered with Dr. Robin Kowalski and Dr. Susan Limber, psychologists at Clemson University who had already conducted a national survey on cyberbullying with students in grades 6 through 8. To build on that knowledge, we interviewed 148 middle and high school students in public schools. We selected schools in part for their diverse socioeconomic status.tudents in public schools.

In a recent incident in which local teens "cyberbullied" a fellow Palo Alto student, school district officials said they helped remove the offending website and notified the parents of "six or eight" perpetrators who are students at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools. The bullying occurred over the weekend of Feb. 28, when some students created a Facebook "I Hate..." group targeting another student. The Internet group quickly gained up to 100 members and included vicious comments against the student as well as some posts in the student's defense. School district officials, who learned of the activity over the weekend, helped remove the Facebook group early on Monday, March 2.

A group of high school students said recently that cyberbullying is on the rise in their schools, just as it is nationally. Cyberbullying is loosely defined as using computers or cell phones to harass or bully another. It can happen by cell phone text messages, on social networking sites and even on online games that allow chatting. "It's growing and it's going to continue to grow," said Rich Horner, the police superintendent for North Franklin Township in Washington County, on the southwest side of Washington. "A lot of this stuff is kids being kids. There's always been bullying. Now, they have more avenues to do it. It's enough of a problem that the state attorney general's office created a video about cyberbullying and will launch it in May, said Diana Woodside, assistant director of education and outreach.

According to the Bakersfield Californian, a Stockdale High School student, who was physically assaulted by five older students, has settled his suit against the Kern High School District, the students who committed the assault and two other students for $260,000. The case illustrates the degree to which students and their parents can be held financially accountable in bullying cases. It also shows that students can be held financially responsible even if they are witnesses or simply know about such incidents, but don't tell authorities.

Did you know that 42% of kids have been bullied while online? Did you know that 35% of kids have been threatened online? Did you know that Palo Alto is home to the most popular Social Networking site in the world, Facebook? Did you know that the Palo Alto School District DOES NOT have a cyber-bullying policy? Surprised? Me too.

Today's students live in an incredibly high tech world- from cell phones to Facebook to YouTube to iPods- K-12 schools are faced with a multitude of new challenges that must be addressed in your student handbook. How can you restructure your student handbook to include the potential issues that may arise as a result of students' increased use of these technologies? Join us for a live, 60-minute audio conference where you and your colleagues will learn:
* Keys to Drafting K-12 Handbook Policies for Today's Students
* Online Use Policies: Facebook, MySpace & Online Communities
* Crafting Guidelines & Policies for Cell Phone & iPod Use at School
* Protecting Your School from Liability: What You Need to Know
* Cyberbullying & Technology Misconduct: What Educators Must Know

Student -created videos telling powerful stories!! D.U.S.T.Y. is an afterschool program for middle and high school students in Oakland, CA. DUSTY students work on computers to create their own Digital Stories, as well at to generate rap and hip hop "beats and rhymes." Throughout the creative process, students learn to master programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Fruity Loops with the help of skilled instructors. At the end of each semester, the students' creative masterpieces, including digital stories, raps, beats, and performances are showcased in some sort of final event at The Parkway Theatre, The Metro, and other local venues.

In this information technology age, children and youth in West and East Oakland face the additional disadvantage of a digital divide, which separates ethnicities, socio-economic classes, genders, and ages. Youth from low-income communities rarely have access to cutting edge communication technologies or, just as importantly, to empowering uses of them. A comparison between the number of computers per Oakland school with the schools' statewide academic performance ranking, or API, revealed that some schools with high numbers of computers have very low API's. This discrepancy suggests that simply having technology is not enough; rather, to improve student academic outcomes, technology must be meaningfully used.

The average teenager spends more than three hours a day watching TV, but only 43 minutes reading, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, data which suggests that as important as English literature and composition courses are to a proper high school education, something valuable is missing from the curriculum. A number of schools are already answering that need, offering media literacy programs that teach teens to recognize and deconstruct the ways messages are made in film, television and new media.