Image by MGN.

NEW BRUNSWICK — For adults who were bullied as children, it’s a memory that seems to last forever. The look, the words, the tears, the torment, the solitude.

For some children, the pain at the hands of their torturers is so incapacitating that they are pushed to commit horrible acts – either on themselves on upon others.

Bullying was once considered a rite of childhood. Now that the long-term effects of bullying are becoming better known, schools are now being proactive in addressing the rite that wrongs thousands of students each year.

Two school districts in Cape May County are participating in Rutgers University Bullying Prevention Institute (BPI). Woodbine School District, along with the Cape May County Special Services District, are two of 12 districts throughout the state that participate in the program.

“Kids have a right to go to school and feel safe and supported, not intimidated or bullied,” said Dr. Lori Guerriero, director of the Bullying Prevention Institute.

Guerriero recalled her torment as the victim of a middle school bully.

“I have trouble remembering the names and faces of most of the people I was in seventh grade with,” she said in a statement. “But I remember her – her name, her face, everything about her.”

Under the new Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, school districts throughout the state must adhere to rules for dealing with bullying incidents. While the new Bill of Rights deals with incidents of bullying once they occur, the focus of BPI is to address those practices that help prevent bullying behavior.

Character education, civility and safety are concerns of the program. According to one participating school district administrator, students in her school are taught to say, “Oh, I am so sorry, are you all right?” if they bump into someone.

Learning the ropes of the new state-mandated anti-bullying law has been a challenge for some districts.

One administrator shared how a kindergarten student went into the lavatory and when she tried to leave, she was confronted by a boy who told her, “I am the toll taker; you have to pay me a toll.” The little girl socked him.

Instead of the school’s anti-bullying specialist consulting the school’s administrator, the specialist instructed the teacher to write the incident up. “We have a zero-tolerance policy in our school about violence,” said the anonymous administrator. “The parents were called in and a letter when into the girl’s file. Her mother said the girl had been intimidated, and that she had taught the girl to respond that way if she felt intimidate. So a letter went into the boy’s file, too.”

“One educator from a suburban district said students whose parents received formal notice that their children had harassed, intimidated or bullied someone (such a notice is required by law), sometimes showed up at school with their children and their lawyers,” said an article in Rutgers Today. “Another said teachers in her district, trying hard to do the right thing, kept sending me notifications about first-graders fighting over crayons.”

Marge Krah, of the county’s Special Services District, sees her work not in terms of laws, but in terms of producing good human beings.

“We’re in the business of producing decent human beings,” she said. “And that’s nurtured in an atmosphere of safety and mutual respect. I don’t want to be the anti-bullying coordinator,” she added. “I’d rather be called the respect coordinator and take it from there.”

“Bullying is not a rite of passage,” said Gurriero. “Kids have a right to go to school and feel safe and supported, not intimidated or bullied. They shouldn’t have to worry about that.”