Fipblyearold super smart kid could be so scathing, wrote an open letter that was bordering on really not appropriate, about this and about Constitutional Rights and not only about supporting people and giving them dignity for whoever they were, but also about freedom of expression. Now, you want to get boys to talk about equality in a classroom . You start from a letter that a vikings punter sent. Thats where we also get into u. S. History and this is where we get into core rur can urriculum. This is about freedom of speech, it makes it relevant, it goes right into something that kids are already seen on espn so they are already primed to talk about it. Thats the kind of stuff i think we need to be looking at so we get this bullying stuff out of their head and they see relevance instead. Anyone want to take some questions . I want to start with a young student. Everyone needs to read that letter. It is shocking. Alexis, are you here . You want to come up here . Come on. Dont be shy, nobodys going to bite. Lets give her some encouragement here. Weve heard from adults all day long, we want to hear from somebody who is come over here, young lady. My name is cheryl, thank you for being here. We have some great guests who care about you, everybody in this room cares about you. You have been through some training. You have a question for our guests . No, but i want to thank you for doing this. Thank you. Without this wed be back at scare one. Thank you. Have you seen bullying at your school . Can you tell us a little about that . I dont have bullying like at the movie but its kind of like, oh, she wore this, so. Did somebody in your school do something about it . Not really. The teachers dont see it. Nobody wants to say anything to the teachers so they dont think this is a big deal. Yeah. Youve been through training to stop bullying so what does that mean . Well try to stop it and well try to get them to stop saying those things. Have you done that so far . Have you been able to intercede . Yeah. What happened . They stopped. Nobody did anything bad to you . No. How did that make you feel . Good. Good job. Thank you so much, honey. There are two things that she raises that i just want to highlight. One is the role of the teacher, what they can do and what can the peers do. I think one of the truisms that teachers need to remember, they know they just need to remember it,. Their leadership as a team is compromised so whatever that team is, the football team, the basketball, the student counsel, the peer leaders. If the peer leader doesnt do the right thing and this is my initiative and if you dont do the right thing you dont look like what know what youre doing and that isnt cool and you didnt do your job that well, if we get in these ambassador programs and give them training and rigor and how difficult that moment can be you can transform a school because of the power of kids talking to each other. All right. Do we have another question . I appreciate that point you have been making. Been, wooing with the board and the foundation and launch the student Advisory Board and i think we need to get that training kicked in really fast and thats a point well taken, and i appreciate lee you showing that clip because it illustrates an important distinction that we need to make. We dont want to send the message to america that bullying is normative; that bullying is normal, and that clip illustrated that the school is sending that message, and there is a difference, an important distinction between the school sort of embodying and sending the message to the kids that bullying is just a part of growing up and believing that bullying in our school is normative because it simply isnt. The data shows bullying is going down and that is not a popular thing to say these days. Bullying is a very important social problem that we need to fix, but it is not an epidemic and its not on the rise and neither is Cyber Bullying and the top scholars in the country and in social science and psychology that saying that, so thats an important distinction so thank you both so much. And there is that and theres a balance between i mean when i hear that bullying is going down i mean all of us should rejoice because that to me is indicative of the fact of the work in communities across the country are starting to pay off, but its going to be hard in this ark and we are in this area and people are coming forward, kids are coming forward. Suicides that would have been kept forward or not reporting and were learning thanks to rapid fire and thanks to social networking or facebook and this is a sued all of this the the volume of bullying is going to rise in proportion with i think the actual drop in occurrences so to balance that and be aware of that i think is important. I totally agree, and thats really to rosylyns point about this being a very, very important moment and we need to did it right. Just on the subject of suicide the Surgeon General came out this week and there was a usa today story and suicide and especially among veterans right now and suicide is complex and we cannot send the message there is a lot of fear out there right now that bullying leads to suicide and suicide is complex and 90 of people who take their lives have Mental Health problems and there are rarely a single factor and that is something your film has been criticized for. Sure. And some of the kids had other factors involved besides bullying and i think we have to be really careful. We need to talk about suicide. Its a Public Health problem. Its out there. But there are people that silence the confidence about suicide conservation about suicide and is dangerous as well. We have a question. I do research in this area. I want to thank you both of you and your film and bringing vast awareness to this. One of my concerns is the National Discourse unfolds we want to get tough on bullying and the more severe the consequences are, high stakes consequence and it is antibullying laws and et cetera it is more likely children are actually not going to speak up, and it causes this sweeping under the rug and i just think this needs to be addressed and i wanted to thank you for your comment about connecting the false assumption that bullying is always linked to suicide. Thats something that was talked about at the federal summit that we need to separate these two issues out to some extent and one of the things well, i will just ask i guess my question is sorry. So much to share i thought something that was interesting and i am trying to remember what i wanted to say i wanted to say our approaches are converging in opposite ways and students feel safe to get the bullying addressed but the policies are punitive and high stakes and we know that zero tolerance is not the case and makes things work and gives a one week vacation. You can leave school for a week, have fun and when you come back you get to do what you did before. Thank you. Thanks. One thing i always thought disciplining kids you is you have to get create and i have have systems in place and one thing i have always done with administrators if you want to make the bully feel like theyre being held responsible then take away their appearance of social power. What that means is in every school that i ever been to there is always a place where that kids have places they hang out; right . So if you have a kid that is aggressive or bullying someone they have a place they hang out. Do not let that person hang out there. You can get into the most ridiculous conversations with the kid no, you dont get to sit on the senior bench this year. No you dont. Youre 18 and i know youre about to have a petition and a protest and im not going to let you sit on the senior position and especially if the child has high social power and they sit where people can see them. Its their place. Some are waiting to get on that bench since freshman year, so if they do something inappropriate and dont allow them to participate as a member of the community. That is way worse than a two day suspension and everyone sees. You dont need to blanket it out and no, you dont get to sit on the bench and being creative that way is helpful and another thing i learned from the principal and i was stuck and working with boys and boys are complex and interesting. Really complex. I know it doesnt look like it and they really are, so one of the things that boys are really good boy aggressors are great at is when they have when they go to the Principals Office be disciplined when they walk out they are usually good bulls bullyings, are good at making sure everything that happened in the office is a joke, so what do you do with that . How do you discipline that . I was talking to people in illinois about it and military guy and sit foot six and scary and i need help and i dont want to do that as a principal. Im not in the army anymore and so when they walk out of my office i know that theyre doing this and i dont know what to do besides be really scary. That was amazing the principal came forward amongst the peers and said i dont know what i am doing and in this situation i need help and another principal said when i am in the office who i am disciplining how you connect yourself when you walk out of my office very much deals with you ho i deal with this entire problem. Thats a great idea and i am sharing that with you. We have three more minutes left and i have one more person. Briefly please. We have a lot of research in bullying prevention and social Emotional Learning programs and castle if we are looking at longterm prevention of this issue i would like that more part of the conversation as well and thank you for the work in bringing awareness. [inaudible] great. Thank you. We have one more person that wants to Say Something before addressing the issue of suicide and Mental Health issues i believe. Again we only have about three minutes. I will make it quick. My point is as a child of a mother that killed himself while at school when we toss out these statistics and goodness only 90 are Mental Health ill. Lets extrapolate the number and 10 died directly from peer abuse, something cause and effect, and if we recognize we currently have the highest suicide rate with the military, cause and effect. We dont dishonor their memories by saying theyre mentally ill and making all these excuses. As a mother my child wasnt mentally ill but harassed to the point he broke and that is the part i read both your book. Theyre excellent. Lee, as i said earlier after michael died i emailed you and the greatest grief imaginable trying to just i never heard of any of this, and you emailed me back, and i am here to tell you that children who are killing themselves i know their parents. These kids are not mentally ill. They are breaking under ho rendous set of circumstances and yes we can discuss resiliency and all these other things, but we have to have room in the conversation for our very sensitive kids as well. Thank you so much. [applause] all right. One final thought from each of you and we have to wrap it up and i want to talk about your project and with the schools. I want us to think about as the day we have been challenging ourselves what we can do to make a contribution, one of the things to think about is the way in which im trying to address the problem of sensitivity and there are some kids of different thresholds and definitions and everyone has the right to their emotional truth and we need kids to learn more social skills and resiliency and all of these things that i am doing and never would have done it and hit me in the last year or two. I was going to do a chapter i am and kids on the spectrum of autism andace perers and targeted or initiated into perpetrating, which i dealt with last week, are perpetrators and aggressors, so i wanted to work on that so im working with kids and with aspergers and autism and one thing that struck me is we need to be able on the flip side, so im now writing to kids when you are the one that has more of a thick skin, whatever you want to call it, how do you interact with kids who are more sensitive . Just how do you do that . How do you recognize the signs when youre around somebody that does calibrate and has a different definition and what bothers them and what doesnt and if we can do that and im asking autistic kids and aspergers kids and normal kids and what are the things that trigger these things and what can we do and i want you to know what i am doing right now and i am working with boys and i finished the porn section and honest im doing all of it and why do girls send naked pictures and this week were creating concrete strategies and scenarios so they can picture what to do when they are up either way against these dynamics and if we Work Together this way and really name it. Sometimes kids with aspergers can do things that are off putting. I sat with a kid in a class that put his leg over class during the over the head during class and 17 years old and its off putting. We can own it and now what do we do about it . Its not distracting to everybody fine but how do we do it in a way were honest with everyone in the room and reaching out to each other appropriately. You have a project and working on a thing, a whole school based project. Yeah, well anyways thank you guys. This is really a great conversation. Just a little bit about where were going. Bully the movie is backed by a team, the bully project, and we have been bringing the film and educating, Training Professional Development largely thriewr our partnership with them and provides that to School Districts and classrooms across the country for free, so educators can sign up, and if they agree to do the training and to take it seriously and embed it with the kids and the adults in the community we provide them with oftentimes busing, but often free tickets so they can see the film outside of school and make it an event and that is our project 1 million kids. Were doing it in a big way here in the bay area thanks to the leadership in this community. Yep and oakland and all over. Its just awesome and in cleveland and right now we have 13,000 students across the basin in Salt Lake City are seeing it, and does have impact and the impact is largely i would say it creates a sense of agreement. The biggest thing that bully does or the big service the film has is gives everyone a unified collective science of agreement to which they roll up the sleeves and get busy creating change and has been really exciting. I building we already i believe kroshed the threshold of 140,000 students nationwide and we are working to get to the million and the idea is a million is a tipping point. A million kids in america. Thats like one in ten basically in public schools. That gets embedded so over time every september schools are starting with that method to have that agreement, and along the way were also trying to deliver youth action and educate ideas and teach the schools and districts about social Emotional Learning because after they see the film they want to know what do we do next . How do we impact that . And thats what i am up to and its great to be here. Thanks so much for coming here. We appreciate it. [applause] good afternoon everyone. I am rachel smith falls and a Senior Vice President here of futures without violence i wanted to thank you all for being here and formally welcome to futures without violence. As many of you know of the former name had that for close to 30 years and when we moved to this building we changed our name to futures without violence and for many reasons and it really does reflect the work that we do in the mission. We are here to create futures without violence and we believe its possibility when we stand in solidity with people like yourself and i want to thank you for being here. You are one of the first groups to hold a all Day Conference in this space. We are open to suggestions if you have ideas or using the space for your own organizations. We are up and running in this part of the Conference Center and in a year and a half we will open the rest of the building and has a public exhibition that deals with the topics youre talking about today and bullying and education and creating the future we want for our families and children and if you for coming today. I think you are taking a short break and reconvening in this room at 2 15 oclock and please come back in 2014 when we open to the public. Before we start the panel i want to do the thank yous and i recognize when were done everyone will leave and i wanted to exz press this. So this was a concept. I think about two and a half months ago and anne marie and brian and we were in my office talking about what we could do and what we could do to help and it went from that to this because of Anne Marie Conroy so i want to give a big round of applause to anne marie. As everybody in the room knows shes a force of nature and thats all i have to say and to futures without violence and for this beautiful facility. We got support from the School District and various people and terrific from the Mayors Office and of course the mayor and the bully project. We couldnt be more grateful. From the San Francisco Police Department from greg sir to denise flair erty and Cheryl Jennings and the girl friday and kept us moving all day and to the communications that we got the word out through the media and laura who kept us moving today and Financial Support. If you read about the Justice Department in the paper you know we cant pay for anything. When people come to my office quite literally i cant give them coffee. People think the government is high flying and i am here to tell you its not true. There was support for this event and we couldnt be more grateful to the people that made this possible and the Rosenberg Foundation and they are here, the San Francisco foundation and dr. Sander herself and a round of applause, the california endowment and others provided tremendous Financial Support so thank you very much for that. [applause]. We really do appreciate it and the cohost and mary lee and tom torque son and who you met this morning and our next panel is planning for student safety opportunity and success and planning for action around the bay. Our moderator is jill tucker an education reporter at the San Francisco kron cell. I told jill its hard to find bios online for reporters. They can stay out of google. Shes Award Winning reporter and covered california schools for 14 years and knows a lot about this subject and was honored by the California Teacher association and received the highest award about the growing number