EDITORIAL – Board of Ed does not care about bullying

Pittsburgh Board of Education, you’re all poopyheads.

Last month, the board stopped… Pittsburgh Board of Education, you’re all poopyheads.

Last month, the board stopped Pittsburgh schools from participating in an anti-bullying program that looked to curtail harassment — both verbal and physical — in middle and high schools. The second annual No Name Calling Week was supposed to teach Pittsburgh kids not to tease other students because of their sexual orientations, in addition to more commonly talked-about reasons like race and religion.

The program had signed participants from 36 states, and, earlier this year, Mayor Tom Murphy announced that Jan. 24-28 would be No Name Calling Week in Pittsburgh schools.

Mayor Murphy, for failing to back up your promise, you, too, are a poopyhead.

In Allegheny County, two schools, one of them private, did participate in the week of essay contests, public speakers and other activities, according to an article in the Post-Gazette. But Brentwood Middle School, the public school that participated, left out the parts of the program that dealt with gays and lesbians.

So that’s a grand total of one and a half schools, out of 266 middle and high schools in and around Allegheny County asked to participate in the program.

Start looking up a synonym for poopyhead, because there are apparently a lot of them out there.

By passing on No Name Calling Week, Pittsburgh is sending a clear message: We don’t care about bullying. The school board has effectively ushered in an atmosphere of fear.

What the school board is forgetting is just how hard it is to be teased. It sucks, really, really bad. Nobody wants to be made fun of for being fat or for wearing glasses.

For just the same reasons, students don’t want to be singled out and made fun of for their sexual orientations or race, either.

The Pittsburgh school district does have an anti-discrimination policy, and it does include sexual orientation. But in terms of educating students against bigotry, the City’s taking a don’t ask, don’t tell approach.

Tolerance used to be the “in” thing. It used to be acceptable to teach in schools. Now school boards across the country are putting a stop on expanding students’ worldviews.

No Name Calling Week’s organizer, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, designed the program to encompass all types of reasons for schoolyard bullying, from race to religion to sexual orientation.

By contrast, the school board created a week lacking in constructive conversation. It missed the chance to further open-mindedness, and, as a result, Pittsburgh students got no lessons on discrimination of any kind.

This is not what schools should be teaching. The message should be that all teasing is wrong and nothing qualifies as a justification for physical or verbal abuse.

Middle school is hard enough. Why can’t we give the kids one week off? Just give them one week where they don’t have to worry about getting shoved into a locker or having their lunch money stolen.

Instead of promoting a climate in which slurs are acceptable, the school board should be striking down foulmouthed harassment. That would be the first step in a long road to not being poopyheads.