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From U.S. Newswire Releases:
GLSEN, or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, applauds the White House for recognizing that a summit is needed to address the recent rash of school attacks.
GLSEN hopes that next week's conference will be a nonpartisan event that will place an emphasis on preventing school violence through programs that reduce bullying and harassment, which statistics show are a serious problem in schools.
"For the sake of our youth and our education system, we need to focus on prevention as well as policing and do all we can to make sure students are safe from bullying, harassment and violence in schools.
Reports of Friday's school shooting at Weston High School in Cazenovia, Wis., in which a 15-year-old student killed his principal, indicate that the attacker was upset about having been bullied and called "faggot," a slur that is ubiquitous in schools.
In From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America, a survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of GLSEN in 2005, 65 percent of teens reported having been verbally or physically harassed or assaulted during the past year because of their perceived or actual appearance, gender, sexual orientation, gender expressions, race/ethnicity, disability or religion.
According to the more than 3,000 students surveyed, the three most common reasons students bullied other students were physical appearance (39 percent), actual or perceived sexual orientation (33 percent) and gender expression (28 percent).
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Posted on October 4, 2006 11:10 PM
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