Dave’s Morning Blog: “Houston, We have A Problem!”

The top,front page headline in the Sunday, August 26, 2012  Wyoming Tribune Eagle was "WE HAVE A BULLYING PROBLEM...AT SOME SCHOOLS LCSD1 SCHOOLS, THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS WHO SAY THEY'RE BULLIED TOPS THE NATIONAL AVERAGES...BUT CHANGES COULD BE COMING"

It certainly was fortunate that Laramie County School District #1 wasn't in charge of the Apollo 13 mission when the astronauts notified mission control, "Houston, we have a problem" because it would have taken them 3 years to even really  acknowledge the problem, much less fix it.

Over three years ago, KGAB and The Morning Zone program teamed up with the Wyoming Department of Education and the Bullying Hurts Organization to present the first statewide school bullying townhall meeting at the LCSD#1  Auditorium. Among the panelists and participants in that meeting, it became very clear early on that we had a serious bullying problem in our school district here in Cheyenne.

We followed up that meeting with a long running series on the problems, issues and potential solutions each Friday  morning on The Morning Zone during which we presented many qualified guests, some of whom were members of the Laramie County School District #1 Administration and aired a pleathera of comments from parents, students and community members. During those programs we always continued to focus on the scope and seriousness of the problem and sstress the need for the District to develop  solid, effective programs and policies to address and , at least begin, to resolve the problems. This was, sadly, underscored even more in january of this year with the apparent "bullycide" by young Alex Frye right here in The District.

Unfortuately, the District was painfully slow to accept that there really was much of a problem and even slower to develop and implement an effective program to address it. Members of the District staff are quoted as saying they weren't suprised about the results of the survey, and the rest of the media has been equally slow to report the seriousness and scope of the problem. It should be noted that The Morning Zone Program, host Dave Chaffin and guest Marvin Nash, President of The Bullying Hurts Program, on  KGAB and www.kgab.com, actually first reported on the survey results to which the WTE article refers, this past Spring. Kudos to the WTE for at least acknowledging and quoting Mr. Nash in the article. It was news then, but thanks WTE for resurrecting it now that the new school year is about to begin.

Also, it is even more interesting to note the headline underscores that the District is STILL trying to get together...it reads...".BUT CHANGES COULD BE COMING". Key word here is COULD. Really? Well, it remains to be seen. The start of school and time will tell, but don't hold your breath.