Barry Finn mentioned the federal requirement that schools have bullying policies-be aware that policies exist only on paper, and school practice is often unconnected to what may or may not appear on paper.

I am part of an organization that provides violence(meaning bullying and sexual assault) prevention programs in our local schools. I am in fact the creator of the current program that we offer.

In our state, unlike most other states, funding for the schools is appropriated by county government, and our county funded the program. In the this year's annual ritual of budget appropriation, as part of a political compromise, the money for our program was channeled into pet projects of one of the councilmen.

Our Congressman demanded that the money be restored--parents and teachers wrote letters about it--the local newspaper advocated for us---pointing out that there had been a rash of sexual assaults on school busses, there were large scale problems with bullying violence in a number of schools, and even a school gang related murder(fear of being bullied in school is a primary motivation for gang affiliation, and it is the reason that kids bring weapons to school, too)--

None of this has any impact--the politicians don't see the issue as important, and
the school administrators don't want to lobby for violence prevention money because they area
afraid it will create the impression that their schools are not safe, and that their "policies" are not effective--

And so it goes.....