NEW LAW ALLOWS SCHOOLS TO COMBAT, PREVENT CYBERBULLYING
Sitting under the covers in her dark bedroom, she looks through her phone checking Instagram, then Twitter.
She hears a ding, so she checks her DM’s and sees a message from someone she doesn’t know. When she reads the message her heart stops and she feels dead inside.
The sender called her names and said she was useless, ugly, and she should just kill herself.
She laughs it off, turns off her phone and turns over and goes to sleep.
“I cried because that’s all I could do,” sophomore Lisa Price said. “I felt weak and numb.”
In January 2016 State Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, proposed a bill that to make cyberbullying a crime in honor of a student who committed suicide because of cyberbullying. This law, David’s Law, was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott June 12, 2017. It went into effect September 1.
Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.
“The first few messages, I thought they were funny, but then they started coming constantly, but since I really couldn’t control it, it started hurting me inside and I felt lonely, like no one cared,” Price said.
Former cyberbully sophomore Sally Smith said she was bullied by multiple people for no reason so she became a bully too.
“I did it because I felt hurt about what they did to me,” Smith said. “So, I was looking for revenge, somewhere to take my pain out on.”
Malissa Jones, AISD and former SHHS social worker, said a good way to deal with the situation is to not just to ignore it. She said about 30 percent of the SHHS student population would report cyberbullying incidents to her per semester last year.
The new law requires schools to have harsher punishment for cyberbullying and to report it like a crime if it is severe.
“A lot of the time I would tell them to think about the person you are don’t start a back and forth think about who you are,” Jones said
Jones said Cyberbullying and Bullying is wrong, that it damages people. Even if it’s just words those who bully completely destroy someone.
If you need to report any bullying or cyberbullying go to any SHHS counselor.
Moises Castro
Student names were changed in this article to protect student privacy.
Hi, I’m Moises. I love to eat pasta, drink coke, listen to pop or Indie music, write stories, read comics and stories, and play video games. #WhatAmIDoing...
