LaRon Perine, Wis.

There’s a big problem in our country, a problem everyone is familiar with and I’m sure you’re aware about as well. Too many people watch idly by while this problem invades our schools and communities, students and teachers alike don’t speak up and we need to do something about it. So today i wanted to talk about Bullying.

Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year, that extremely high number of students that have been bullied physically and/or emotionally is outrageous and i know you will agree with me when i say we the people need to put an end to bullying. 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4% of the time. With that fact i advise we put it into teachers minds now that bullying of any kind is unacceptable and should be a punishable act in school. This way students will think twice before messing with another student for whatever reason.

Over 67% of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective. The fact that students are too worried to tell a teacher because they aren’t helpful is a big issue with bullying, teachers don’t help or don’t really solve the problem for good, teachers should give more harsh punishments if they want to stop bullying in schools.

When you walk through the halls of an elementary school, you can see how much worse bullying is when you’re younger than when you’re older. 90% of 4th through 8th graders report being victims of bullying. Physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school, but verbal abuse remains constant. The first step to stop bullying is to reach our kids. Someone that sees them the most, especially at school where bullying is the most frequent, teachers should be the ones to end the bullying at an early age, whether physical or verbal.

So it’s up to you Mr. President. Are you gonna be the president to finally stop bullying once and for all? Will the future of our kids be a bright one where all of us can get along, or will we be doomed to see one another as punching bags and not human beings? Our country is in your hands Mr. President, don’t let us down.