RI school draws awareness to bullying

WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) - With the cases of classroom bullying on the rise nationwide, one Warwick school hopes to change the course of the trend and make sure that every child that walks through the doors feel accepted.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and on this day the kids at Greenwood Elementary School in Warwick wanted to show their support.

"What it means is we are bringing awarness to those probably to something that goes back to the dawn of man kind. Which is poeple not treating people well and hurting them," said Dennis Winn, Principal of Greenwood Elementary School.

Everyday 160,000 kids stay home to avoid being bullied.

"The phrase we use now is bullying it has been around for ever. The real way to take care of bullying to change the way people think is for days like this when we pull everybody together we get folks the children in particular and really all of us to focus on how we treat each other as a community and understand that everybody deserves respect and courtesy."

Bullying at any age can erode a persons self-esteem and impact learning at school.

"It's not so much about pointing out that bullying exists because we all know that it does but it is about pointing out that we can all fix it by being the kind of decent people that we can all be to one another."

Kids, parents and school officals are all uniting and speaking out.

"One of the most important things that can happen with children is they do things many times and they have no idea how hurtful they are being until they step into that other persons skin," said Winn. "Every time I ask a student if they have had that sick feeling in there stomach because someone has made them feel less than somebody else or excluded, I get that unintentional nod because we have all had that experience," explained Winn.

An experience that is getting worse in schools across the country.

"The major message is if you don't want that experience yourself and it is something that you hate and really bothers you why would you ever inflict it on someone else?"

Greenwood Elementary School wants to be a leader not a follower in stopping bullying.

"The key is education and in my experience when students understand what that other person felt like that is when they will correct."

Bullying can happen to anyone at any age and will impact learning at school, cause anxiety and depression or even worse.

Online: http://www.stopbullying.gov/index.html