While McMath Secondary school gets set to host anti-bullying events next week as part of Pink Shirt Day on Feb. 26, leadership students are hoping the messages they spread don't fall on deaf ears after all the hype and hoopla ends.
As one walks through the school, pink anti-bullying posters and slogans are front and centre, however, leadership teacher DiAnne Simonson, who teaches Grade 10-12 students, has taken the anti-bullying messages to another level by involving community members to work with students year-round to raise awareness against bullying both online and in the hallways.
"We're doing this all year. I wanted to take away the focus that anti-bullying awareness was just about one day or one week. We are trying to tackle this 365 days a year," said Simonson.
For the last few years, Simonson's classes have led the school's Pink Shirt Day events. And while there was a lot of focus on the specific day, the message waned by the end of the year.
"I feel now it has taken off, and we are really addressing bullying," said Simonson, who
expects about 800 students, or 75 per cent of the student body, to wear a pink shirt on Pink Shirt Day.
On Monday, several McMath students attended a Richmond Board of Education meeting to address trustees on their events and projects.
Julia Olsen was one of those students.
"I thought it would be good to let the school board know we are not only making it a week long event but that we will also follow up on what we do," said Olsen.
Leadership student Anika Domanski says online bullying remains a problem.
"Online, I think kids are trying to be funny.
Either way, bullying online or in person, is bad," said Domanski.
One particularly interesting event the leadership students have worked on is an acoustic music routine using plastic cups, whereby the students pass cups to one another in a circle while creating a rhythmic beat. The routine symbolizes people working together and was performed at the school board meeting.
Simonson and her students are partnering with guest speakers from Chimo Community Services and Richmond Addiction Services to address bullying and digital hardware addiction.
"Admittedly, it's hard to stay on top of everything the students do. These are such fantastic tools - cell phones and tablets - but there are a lot of pitfalls too and a lot of worry. There are bullies and predators out there," said Simonson.
Richmond RCMP will also speak to students next week about protecting online identities, well as ways to combat online bullying. The new event, called Richmond Delete Day 2014, will provide students with information on how to set privacy settings on social media sites as well as how to delete content such as photos. Police will also tell students to delete people they don't know or with whom they are no longer friends.
