“Who da uglyest person at Sycamore High School?” asks an anonymous student on a popular Web site that takes bullying to new levels.

        America has long known that playground bullies don't just steal lunch money. Today, emotional assaults are the dominant form of bullying in schools, and kids are using the Internet to escape detection.

        “It's like being put in a cage and having people throw stuff at you all day,” says Allen Chaney, 13, a student at Ockerman Middle School in Boone County, Ky.

        Alarmed by such evidence, parents and educators are abandoning old notions of bullying as a rite of passage. Across the country, they're launching unprecedented efforts to protect kids from each other, aiming not just at physical intimidation but also at more subtle forms of emotional harassment.

        The cultural shift is reflected in approaches at some Tristate schools. Among them:

        • Next fall, for the first time, parent volunteers in the Wyoming School District will ride school buses to discourage taunting, dirty looks, name-calling and physical intimidation. Teachers also will receive training to systematically stop abuse.

        • At Mason Middle School, resource officer Jeff Burson has spread the word that bullying will not be tolerated. Since he arrived in January, one boy has been charged with assault for punching a smaller, quieter student on the bus, and two students have been disciplined internally for bullying-related fights.

        • At Sellman Middle School in Madeira, a “No Taunting Promise” is posted in many classrooms. And in response to a student survey, teachers have been reassigned to watch for bullies around lockers and on the playground.

        • At Symmes Elementary School in Symmes Township, the entire fourth grade voted this year to have strict, new consequences for bullying, including automatic loss of recess and the summoning of parents to the school.

        Periodic classroom discussions weren't enough, guidance counselor Sue Soldo says.

        “They'd cry, they'd all apologize, we'd sing "Kumbayah,' and then two weeks later, we'd be back to the same behavior,” she says.
       

"Every single mean name'

       Bullying isn't teasing, because teasing is meant in fun. Nor is it a dispute between equal parties, because bullies have all the power, which they use to repeatedly hurt vulnerable targets.

        Chrystal Green knows all about it. Her experience at Hopewell Junior High in the Lakota School District illustrates how peer harassment can take both forms — physical and emotional.

        After years of attending Christian schools, Chrystal started the eighth grade this year as a new student at Hopewell. She stands out, she says, because she doesn't have a computer, doesn't watch television and buys her clothes at Wal-Mart instead of Abercrombie & Fitch.

        “I'm just a very quiet girl, keep to myself, and they say, "She's easy to attack,' ” says Chrystal, 14. “I've been called every single mean name, all the cuss words.”

        On the bus last fall, Chrystal took a seat that was supposedly reserved for cool kids, she says. As a result, several girls got off at her stop instead of their own, and one of them picked up her bookbag and slammed it down on her back, then punched her.

        Police referred the incident to Hopewell Principal David Pike, who promptly confirmed the facts with witnesses and suspended Chrystal's attacker for three days.

        “It was a pretty negative situation,” Mr. Pike says. “It was physical, and once it becomes physical, that sends it in a different direction.”

        But the verbal taunts are just as painful, Chrystal says. Although she is now on cordial terms with the girl who attacked her, harassment from other kids continues. One girl makes fun of Special Olympics athletes because she knows it bothers her, Chrystal says.

        Jessie Mayne, a Hopewell classmate, says she recently tried to stop a popular girl from mocking Chrystal.

        “Why are you making fun of her like that?” she asked.

        “Because I can,” the girl said. “Look at her.”

        “What?”

        “Look at her hair, look at her clothes, look at her teeth.”

        Recalling that conversation a few days later, Jessie said she was furious but uncertain what else she could do.

        Chrystal alternates between sadness and defiance.

        “I believe in individuality,” she says. “No matter how much people pick on me, I will never change who I am.”
       

Taking friends away

       Sometimes the pressure on kids is more subtle. In recent years, the definition of bullying has expanded to include “social isolation,” a favorite tactic of feuding girls.

        “We got hung up on physical bullying for so long, we always thought boys owned the problem,” says SuEllen Fried, a consultant and co-author of Bullies & Victims.

        In truth, girls are just as likely to bully, and their methods can hurt more, she says.

        Jessica Loth, 11, experienced this when she got on the bad side of a clique at Deer Park's Amity Elementary School this year. The leaders pressured her friends to drop her, she says, which became especially painful when no one would pair up with her during class assignments.

        “I think that's really big bullying,” says Jessica, who has since found better pals. “That's the worst bullying you can do, taking other people's friends away.”

        It's also nothing new. In 1974, children's author Judy Blume vividly captured the ruthlessness of fifth-grade girls in her novel Blubber, which she based on an incident at her daughter's school. In the story, a fat girl is tormented until the lead bully switches her attention to the narrator, who is viciously shunned.

        What's new today is the willingness of some adults to intervene. Here and there, educators are playing detective to understand and stop behavior that might once have been dismissed as “kids will be kids.”
       

Clubs that exclude

       An incident at St. Columban School in Loveland illustrates the new attitude.

        This year, a teacher alerted the school psychologist to a crisis on the playground: Some girls had formed “clubs” that excluded unpopular kids by requiring them to answer impossible riddles.

        “If people are purposely, over time, excluding people, the repercussions are much more severe than being in a physical altercation,” says Julie Niehaus, the psychologist. “These kinds of things stick with people.”

        Her solution: A meeting with all 60 girls aware of the exclusion. She asked them to talk about problems at the school, and several mentioned hurt feelings caused by the clubs. Then they all agreed: Clubs must be open to anyone willing to follow reasonable playing rules.

        A similar intervention took place this year at a Wyoming primary school. Principal Bob Carovillano had noticed that one youngster, a girl of Indian descent, frequently complained of illness during lunchtime. He discovered she was avoiding the cafeteria because other children made fun of the Indian food in her lunchbox.

        Inventing a reason for the child to step out, Mr. Carovillano and his guidance counselor confronted the rest of the class. They explained the harm in such comments and asked the children to stop.
       

Unequal power

        Through most of the last decade, child-abuse specialists had trouble selling schools on the need for bully-prevention programs. Then came the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., where two students shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives.

        Many schools are now scrambling for solutions, and some are making mistakes, says Susan Limber, associate director of the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson University.

        One mistake, she says, is to address bullying through peer-mediation programs, which involve neutral students helping classmates resolve conflicts through signed agreements.

        That's bad because bullying is not a conflict between kids but a form of victimization, Ms. Limber says. Bullies need to be told they are wrong in unequivocal terms, and victims should not be forced to negotiate with their tormenters, she says.

        She promotes an approach developed by Dan Olweus, a psychology professor and from the University of Bergen in Norway who has studied bullying.

        In 1982, three Norwegian adolescents committed suicide as a result of bullying, which triggered a national campaign against it. Dr. Olweus' program was tested at 42 Norwegian schools, which saw at least a 50 percent reduction in bully problems over two years.

        His multilayered approach is now in play at several Greater Cincinnati school districts.

        One of them is Wyoming. Before school lets out this summer, Wyoming kids will fill out a survey developed by Dr. Olweus to determine the nature and extent of bullying. Then, next year, a national consultant will help staff members develop an anti-bullying plan.

        Consistency is key, says Suzanne Katsman, a Wyoming parent who spent two years researching programs for the district. Every adult in a school system, from teachers to bus drivers, needs to use the same words and apply the same consequences when bullying occurs, she says.

        That's the idea at Sellman Middle School in Madeira, which also is following the Olweus model.

        Last year, guidance counselor Becky Sandy received a flurry of complaints about isolation-type bullying. “I had children in here just really sobbing because they were told, "If you play with so-and-so, I won't be your friend anymore,' ” Ms. Sandy says.

        In response, Sellman took the following steps:

        • Requiring students to follow a “No Taunting Promise” that begins with, “I will eliminate taunting from my own behavior and encourage others to do the same.”

        • Surveying fifth-graders. This fall, 77 percent said they had seen or experienced bullying themselves, citing the playground and hallways as most problematic.

        • Assigning four to six teachers to monitor the halls at the beginning and end of each day, and increasing playground supervision from two adults to four.

        • Making regular classroom presentations about bullying and reinforcing the lessons in parent newsletters.

        In keeping with the new, broader view of kid-on-kid cruelty, Ms. Sandy tells the children that spreading lies about classmates is just as bad as hurting them physically. Some have been shocked by the notion that rumors are a form of bullying, she says.

        “I thought, "Isn't it sad that we've come to accept some of this stuff as just life?' ”

        On April 26, Sellman fifth-graders were again surveyed.

        This time, more of them said they had noticed or experienced bullying — 89 percent compared to 77 percent before. Nevertheless, 80 percent said they usually felt safe at school, compared to 75 percent before.

        The extra monitoring appeared to have made a difference. Of kids who had seen bullying, 60 percent cited the playground, down from 81 percent in the fall, and 41 percent named hallways, compared to 78 percent before.

        Sellman kids say they appreciate the school's efforts. But they're also skeptical about the prospects for permanent change. Most bullies, they say, won't stop until they're bullied back.

        Meredith Jackson, 11, thinks fifth grade is too late to make a difference with bullies.

        “I think they should do these programs in kindergarten,” she says.

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