Commentary: Bullies will ruin new school year for some kids

Northwest Herald
The folders are not yet dog-eared, the pencils undevoured.

At this point in the school year, anything is possible. The slate is clean.

By next May, some students will be able to look back on a stellar year. They will have put forth the effort and sacrifice necessary to succeed to their personal utmost. They will have enjoyed solid friendships, and steadfast encouragement from teachers, parents and peers.

Their rewards, among many, will be a tremendous and generally well-deserved sense of self-satisfaction.

Others might look back and wonder how the time slipped by so quickly without as much to show for it as they would have liked.

And still others will come away deeply disappointed, discouraged, perhaps even bitter.

The latter group, all too often, is hampered — sometimes downright crippled — by bullying.

The victims of bullying don’t always nosedive academically, but as bullying chips away at self-esteem, academics can suffer along with students’ psyches. Full story.

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