My name is Rudi. I live in Charles County Maryland. I am not sure if you are familiar with my original Nextdoor post about my daughter’s school experience. At the time of this writing, it had 10.9k views. My oldest daughter was bullied and cyberbullied a couple of months ago at a Charles County middle school. Although I took measures to have their administration staff investigate the situation, like sending emails, making phone calls and visits to the school, filling out bullying forms, etc. Most of those methods became unsuccessful with no resolution. At home, I saw the signs of emotional suffering, that’s why I emailed, called, and had meetings with school officials. 

Mid January she was wrongfully suspended, then transferred to another school in the district where she too experienced some bullying. A week ago she was diagnosed with depression, and in the past has had suicidal ideations. This has been devastating for the family. Bullying deeply affects the mental health and academic performance in young people. 

With all that being said, I want to continue reaching out to the community, especially leadership and parents. I wrote the short posting of my daughter's experience, as a plea to get help from parents in the community with spreading bullying awareness and to ask for support making changes. Several parents shared similar experiences within the school system, in addition to recent news articles about children participating in cyberbullying at the elementary school level. As an initiative to bring change to the school community, I am continuing to advocate and pitch ideas that support anti bullying practices and programs. Prayerfully that will get the attention of state leadership do they can get involved. But I need your help too, the community! The projected plan is to expect large amounts of participation from parents, educators, local businesses, community agencies, school officials, children, etc. The program would be designed to target all levels, K-12. As well as caregiver required performance tasks and community events. I would like to know what kinds of changes you and your students would like to see, actively be apart of the change, bringing the program to life: a SAFE school environment for ALL. I believe by discussing ways to stop bullying, WE help raise awareness of the issue in order to create and demand changes. 

I hope that you will deeply appreciate my considerations. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or want to talk about anything related to what I discussed. 

Thank you! ��
Rudi 

UPDATE:Thank you for signing! Change has to start somewhere. I am working with mental health professionals who help counselor children in the Charles County community. I myself have worked in the school system in another county and have been an early educator for over 17 years. I am working with an educator to create the program ideas that would be implemented in schools, but I am also collaborating with professionals that have the experience to help young people and their families, such as School Board leadership members and the principals at the schools, etc. I’m addition, I am exploring other resources for parents that they may or may not know about. I am using resources such STOPBULLYING.GOV, etc. however, how it is implemented is what I am proposing. The evidence will be there, and it will involve required PARENT accountability and full participation. 

Please make comments??