by Krystal Paco

Guam - Bullying Affects Students, Teachers and All (BASTA), may have launched last year, but was only the start of bullying awareness on island. Ordot-Chalan Pago Elementary School principal Rebecca Perez says she sees bullying at her school, mostly in the form of teasing.

"Bullying occurs everywhere from elementary middle and high school and it's just understanding what bullying is," she explained.

Today marked the launch of training for school staff, made possible through a Judiciary of Guam and Department of Education partnership, in the world's most widely-recognized evidence based program that targets bullying among youth. According to Judiciary Safe and Drug-Free Schools project manager Joleen Respicio, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program pushes to change socially accepted behavior. Part of the training includes participants taking part in a bullying circle where they have a chance to role-play as the bully, the bullied, and the bystander.

She said, "It gives you an opportunity to see where you would fit in and the thinking of the students and how bullying the phenomenon occurs. There's not only that the person that is bullied by the person that bullies and the bystanders, so it kind of puts you in a position and gives each person the opportunity to kind of decide where they stand as a bystander in that bullying circle."

As a school leader, Perez is excited to train others at her school where they can then implement their own anti-bullying campaign. She's especially excited to share what she's learned with parents. "Parents can talk to their children and talk to them about what bullying is and what to do when they're confronted with bullying and it's a lot of talking to adults letting adults know what they're going to and not keeping it to themselves," she said.

Respicio says the Olweus Model also provides a system for collecting local data. Bullying data for Guam's 3rd through 5th graders is expected for release later this year.