Students at JFK Middle School School achieved their goal last week in raising awareness about sexual harassment.
We hope that’s the first step in a continuing discussion by the entire school community examining how best to educate students and staff about what constitutes harassment and other forms of bullying, and how to respond when it occurs.
More than 30 students staged a sit-in for about two hours Thursday, sitting in a hall near the front entrance, and briefly marching through the school and onto the cafeteria stage.
“I really just wanted to speak out and make sure girls and boys who have been sexually harassed have the voice to speak up,” said Gabby Adorno, an eighth-grader who helped organize the demonstration. “Many feel like they can’t, and I want to change that.”
Students continued delivering their message Friday when seventh-graders marched to Look Park for a school trip. About 10 held signs bearing words such as “our bodies, our voices, our choices: respect them.”
Among them was Naomi Hamilton who said, “It makes me feel uncomfortable knowing people next to me have been harassed and some are offenders. I want victims to know that’s not their fault.”
Girls reported boys staring at their bodies, slapping their buttocks or being told they have a “nice butt.” Adorno described harassment in a class this year when a group of boys played a game in which one from time-to-time said “boom” and the rest looked at her “butt.” According to Adorno, she notified staff who told her that the behavior was common for boys that age and suggested that if she was uncomfortable she could sit in the library or elsewhere outside the classroom.
Adorno said she didn’t know if the boys had been punished, but that was not her main goal. Instead, she wanted to shine a light on sexual harassment so people know that “it shouldn’t be a normal thing that kids do.”
Administrators and a School Committee member told Gazette reporter Nyssa Kruse last week that sexual harassment is not tolerated and reports are investigated promptly and thoroughly. JFK Principal Lesley Wilson said the school takes any allegations seriously and does not dismiss such actions as being normal middle-school behavior, nor is it policy to advise a victim of harassment to leave a classroom if they feel uncomfortable.
“We honor the rights of all our students fairly,” said Wilson, who added that she wants to work with them to continue addressing the issue. “I do think the most important thing is hearing student voices.”
According to Wilson, sexual harassment is formally addressed at JFK through health units in gym class,which students take in Grades 7 and 8.
Hamilton said the health curriculum for seventh-graders deals with bullying in traditional forms such as pushing or name-calling, but does not address sexual harassment. In her opinion, the main problems at JFK are a lack of awareness about sexually harassing behavior and weak consequences for offenders. She said education in school would help prevent the offensive behavior, and that a one-day suspension for a first-time offense is not severe enough.
City school administrators should consider whether improvements are needed in the district’s policy governing bullying, including harassment, required by the state’s anti-bullying law for schools adopted in 2010. It calls for every school district to “develop, adhere to and update a plan to address bullying prevention and intervention in consultation with teachers, school staff, professional support personnel, school volunteers, administrators, community representatives, local law enforcement agencies, students, parents and guardians.”
We hope that Wilson this summer continues to address the concerns raised by students by convening a group of faculty and other staff to review the policies regarding harassment specified in the JFK student handbook, and examining the health curriculum to determine if changes are needed.
When school resumes in September, we suggest that Wilson work with students to organize a JFK community forum, including parents, to continue the discussion about sexual harassment, which deserves further illumination.
We’re glad that students got that conversation started. “A lot of kids didn’t know things were happening,” said Aria Schotland, one of the eighth-graders who took part in the sit-in. “Now they know, which was the point — awareness.”