By Megan Tench

Subject: Boston Globe Online / Metro | Region / Web tangle
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Web tangle

Schools struggling to stop tech-savvy bullies who have taken
their taunting to cyberspace

By Megan Tench, Globe Staff, 1/21/2003

I t began a few months ago with name-calling on the bus,
bullying in the hallway, and teasing on the train home, said
Belmont High School junior Jacqueline Garcia. Then, last month,
someone created a website posting Garcia's picture, poking fun
at her red lipstick and long black hair. Taking it a step
further, they also added Garcia's address, telephone number -
and obscenity-laden descriptions about her, she said.

Garcia learned about the site when the whispers began at
school. The 11th-grader logged on to it at school and was
shocked, she said: ''My hands were shaking.''

Garcia, 16, who lives in Roxbury and is part of the Metco
busing program, said she and her mother immediately told school
and police officials about the offending website. Both are
investigating, but no one has been charged. And Garcia, who
already has missed more than three weeks of classes, refuses to
go back to school, saying she feels threatened. She and her
mother say school administrators and Metco officials aren't
taking the incident seriously enough.

''They don't take it as a big deal,'' Garcia said. ''It's like
they are waiting for something big to happen. I just want it to
stop.''

Garcia's case of ''cyber harassment'' presents unique
challenges to investigators: None has heard of anything quite
like it. But to those who track national trends in bullying,
it's not a surprise. Computers, they say, have taken the
schoolyard into cyberspace, and now students can catch up on
ugly taunts and gossip as easily as they can download hot tips
for their math homework.

Belmont High principal Foster Wright, who has urged Garcia to
return to school and pledged she will be safe, acknowledged
that school officials are frustrated and baffled. ''We don't
have much experience with this,'' Wright said.

School administrators more familiar with erasing hurtful words
scribbled on bathroom walls are discovering that cracking down
on bullying in cyberspace is more challenging, thanks to
computer-savvy teenagers.

''When I was in school, kids would use composition books, make
slam books out of them about other kids, and pass them
around,'' said Nancy Mullin-Rindler, director of the Project on
Teasing and Bullying at Wellesley College. ''Now kids are using
technology.''

Whether it's using false or stolen e-mail addresses, instant
messaging under an assumed name, or anonymous website postings
created from virtually any computer, cyber harassers force
school officials to become skilled computer experts to track
them down, national specialists on bullying said.

''Bullies are experts on the hit and run,'' said Jerome
Schultz, a clinical neuropsychologist and director of the
Learning Lab at Lesley University. ''The Internet just gives
the bully a high-tech playing field, and a better chance of
hiding and getting away with it.''

State officials acknowledge that cyber harassment is a
relatively new issue, and some schools are still trying to
figure out how to best discipline students who are caught.
''Some schools, however, already have it specifically written
in the code that what happens outside the school is not their
responsibility,'' said Heidi Perlman, Department of Education
spokeswoman.

But school officials have some leeway, she said, if a site is
threatening, or hurtful, even if it was created on a home
computer.

Three years ago, three eighth-graders at Gates Intermediate
School in Scituate were suspended for five days after posting a
profanity-laden website targeting another student. School
officials learned who posted the site after buzz about the Web
page spread throughout the school.

Last week, Scituate Superintendent Mark R. Mason said the
school system has not created a policy on the use of websites,
but has installed a filtering system on school computers.

In Belmont, police officials would not comment on the specifics
of Garcia's case. But ''we work well with Belmont High School
and we are in constant communication with the high school
administration,'' said Lieutenant Peter Hoerr.

Wright said that police and school officials have been unable
to track down the computer used to create the website about
Garcia. ''The hardest part is that she has suspicions about who
did it, but we don't have any proof,'' he said. ''As the
principal I met with some of the girls, I've involved the
police, and we've done everything we can do. But I can't just
punish kids based on her suspicion. They said they didn't do
it, and what if they really didn't do it?''

Mullin said school staff may have to rely on old-fashioned
methods to track down cyber bullies, such as paying careful
attention to student gossip and talking to those who could
confirm who posted the site. ''I can't imagine that this is a
secret thing,'' she said. ''Kids don't do things like this
unless, of course, they have an audience. It's a way to boost
their esteem.''

While school and police officials try to determine who
developed the website, Rainelda Borrero, Garcia's mother, has
asked Metco officials to transfer her daughter to another of
the high schools in the 32 districts that participate in Metco.
The program was developed 36 years ago as a civil-rights
initiative to desegregate suburban schools and offer minority
students from the city access to some of the best school
systems in the state. Garcia is one of about 3,000 Boston-area
minority students enrolled in Metco, which stands for the
Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity.

Borrero said Metco administrators have refused to transfer her
daughter. And she said she thinks they and school officials are
not taking the matter seriously because the bullies, who she
said also are Metco students, are black and Garcia is
light-skinned and Puerto Rican.

''My daughter is not white enough or black enough and no one's
going to advocate for her,'' she said. ''I feel that if this
was a white and black situation things would be different.''

School officials and Metco administrators deny race is a
factor.

Qasim Adbul-Tawwab, Metco's student services manager, said he
could not comment on Garcia's case, but said transfers within
the program are rare. ''Metco is not a school district, it's a
state-operated busing program. It would be an extraordinary
situation to allow students to transfer,'' he said.

In addition, Tawwab said, the problems Metco students face at
school are the responsibility of the district they're enrolled
in. ''We are certainly supportive of maintaining the safety and
the academic progress of our students, but the problems a Metco
student runs into are to be resolved as though the student is
from that town,'' he said. ''As far as I know, the authorites
are responding to this and there has been no indication of any
threat that would bar her from going to school.''

Wright, Belmont High's principal, said the school will continue
to investigate, but his primary concern is to get Garcia back
in school. ''No one here is saying that this is stuff she
should be subjected to,'' he said. ''We want her here. This
truly is a place she can come and feel safe, and she really
needs to come back to school.''

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 1/21/2003.

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