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tv   Capital News Today  CSPAN  August 11, 2010 11:00pm-2:00am EDT

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we have our drills. always impressed by the way -- i was impressed by the way that the marine department, transition employees did take their positions in this safety seriously. and i was led around the rig and it was explained to me, because i have never been on that rig before, and i was shown all of my evacuation stations, plans. i was given the time to just wonder about from my room and learn my way around, more than one way. . .
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>> i couldn't just pick one out, but i'm going to tell you, yes, because if there's a safety meeting, i'm standing in the background. >> ok. >> is that -- >> let me try it this way. did you attend any abandon ship drills specifically? >> let's see. that would be on sundays. >> that's what i heard. did you attend that?
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>> then i attended one then. >> you did. where was your life jacket? >> in my room. >> ok. and did you board the life capsule? >> no, not during the drill. >> all right. the muster, do you feel that the muster went calmly and effectively? >> there, there is not a way that you're going to be able to effectively take a muster onboard during the incident. it was attempted, and then once the lifeboats were all manned, doors closed, we attempted to take another muster, but it's pitch black at that time and it's still so loud you can't hear yourself think let alone communicate with the man next to you.
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so what they did in -- to resolve that problem, as soon as we were offloaded, onto this work boat, they separated us out, all standing on one end of the vessel right there in that work area, and as the name was called, we left that area to a separate area. so they did, they did get a good muster. >> all right. and which life capsule did you depart in? >> i departed on the one when you come out the door directly to your left. >> ok. >> so that would be number one, i believe it was. >> and do you know if during the time -- how long it took from the time you arrived at that area before you departed? >> it was greater than ten minutes. it was, it was greater than ten
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minutes, because the way the situation was, the way the fuel source was, we were, we were in a, in as good a safe a place as you could be as far as mustering at a lifeboat would go, so we didn't take any chances of leaving too soon, if that's -- if you understand what i'm saying, we stayed until we knew there was nothing else coming, nobody in sight, and everybody was pretty much deemed that it was time to go then. >> and you might have said this. had the other life capsule already departed? >> well, the other life capsule had already loaded and closed the door. i don't know if it had started down before we got in it at final loading. >> and were you in the life capsule that had a tough time starting the engine?
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knowdon't, i don't really if we had any trouble starting the engine. i think we were just really wanting to make sure everybody was there. >> all right. >> if i'm not mistaken, if i wasn't the last one in the boat, i was probably the second to last one getting in. >> before you got on the life capsule, did you ever hear anybody say "abandon ship," or call out for an abandon ship? >> i don't recall those exact words being spoken, but the alarms for abandon ship were going. >> ok. and did you ever see the captain 238 at any time from the explosion till the time you left? >> i did see the members of his crew. i can't say i saw the captain, but we did have some of the marine department coming by, checking at the boats, and i
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couldn't tell you what communication was done. he was just looking and then back to his other duty. so whatever he saw was what he was looking for. >> ok. while you were onboard the bankston, did you hear either mr. ezell or mr. harrell make a phone call? >> mr. ezell or mister who? >> harrell. >> harrell. i, i don't, i don't believe paid any attention to if anyone was on the computer or the satellite phone. i know we had one, but i don't recall anybody using it. >> last area. did you interact at all with the schlumberger people that were out there?
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>> not in any business way. you mean on the vessel itself? >> on the deepwater horizon. >> no, i don't believe i did. i don't believe i had any business with them. >> do you know that they were there? >> didn't pay them any attention if they were. >> do you know any -- >> but i'm sure they would have been, because if their services would have been needed, but i didn't have any, any interest in looking them up. >> do you know anything about a cement bond log that should have been run, or was requested to have been run? >> no, i wasn't privy to any of that. i know what you're talking about, and i know -- i understand what a cement bond log is and the reasoning for it if there's any questions as far as the cement job would be, if
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there would have been any flags, that would have not involved in any decision-making. >> ok, thank you so much. >> thank you, sir. curt kuchta. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, mr. skidmore. my name is kyle schonekas. i represent captain kuchta. sir, was this perhaps the most harrowing experience you've ever had in your life? >> hopefully the only one. >> had you ever endured an explosion like this before? >> no, not that i can think of. >> when you reported to the life capsule and you waited -- were waiting to leave, were you anxious to go, sir?
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>> i believe everyone was anxious to go, but, no, we weren't trying to rush the process. >> was there any concern that every moment you stayed on that rig -- let me ask this: do you recall successive explosions? do you recall that? >> well, i also recall some other explosions, but i believe i could have recognized them for the, the apv's, pressure-- stored vessels, things of that nature that were well above and aft of where we were at the time, and maybe some drums, but there was nothing in our area where the lifeboats are located. there was nothing in our area that would have been -- that made me feel like we need to get out of here right now. i was not uncomfortable in that
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respect. >> you didn't have any concern that the longer you stayed on the rig, the more likely it was that you were going to be injured? >> yes, sir, i did. >> and would you agree that that was probably a common feeling among everyone there waiting? >> i'm sure it was. it was probably more noticeable in some than it was others. >> and the sense was, we need to get out of here as quickly as we can with as many people as we can; is that right, sir? >> we need to get out of here as quickly as we can with everybody. >> and not endanger the rest of the people? >> that's correct. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you, sir. jimmy harrell. >> oh, no, thank you. >> thank you, sir. mike williams. >> no questions, captain. >> thank you, sir. steven bertone. >> no, thank you, captain. >> thank you. bp. >> no questions. >> thank you. transocean. >> thank you, sir. >> sure.
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>> good afternoon, mr. skidmore. >> good afternoon. >> i'm a transocean lawyer. >> yes, sir. >> and for the record, we've never met, have we? >> no, sir, we have not. >> ok. i'm happy to do so now. you had said something that i wanted to follow-up on. you said that when you were heading out on the 16th, or shortly before the 16th that you had requested and received documents from brian morel. do you recall when you said that? >> yes, sir. i did that. >> ok. did you know brian morel before making the request to him? >> i knew who brian was. and actually, where our office where we sat was here and brian was across the hall, so it was real convenient. he was, looked like he was in
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there by himself, looked like a good time to try to get a little information, you know. so shane stepped across the hall and asked him to send us a procedure, or what's going on with the rig right now so we can plan our timeframe, see where we're at, how much time we have and -- >> and the hall that you're referring to was where? >> let's see. i believe that would be forward, upper, on the lifeboat level and forward, because the well site leader's office was across the hall from myself and brian was just down from the well site leader's office. >> and brian is a bp engineer, petroleum engineer -- is that your understanding? >> yes, sir. >> ok. and in addition to brian morel, there were some well site
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leaders who were out there that -- whose identity you knew of. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and did you understand that -- was it your understanding, at least, that brian morel was the senior bp person out there during this time that you're referring to? >> no, i didn't. i didn't, i didn't look at brian as being the senior bp personnel out there. i just knew brian was easily approachable and he's always willing to help. >> now, do you know when brian morel left the deepwater horizon? >> no, sir, i don't. >> ok. do you know if he was on the rig at the time of the explosion? >> i do not believe he was. >> ok. now the documents that you said you requested and received, it was scheduling documents, is that right, or was there anything beyond that? >> oh, it was pretty much a reader's digest-type version of
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a procedure sequence of events -- we're doing this, we're going to be doing that. it had the casing, the casing run in there, it had the lead impression tool, the lockdown sleeve, and then it fell off into riser cleaning, i believe. >> and did it give you -- did he, brian morel, give you in this document an order in which to do these various tasks including the lockdown sleeve? >> well, this is, this appeared to me to be the sequence of events, the order that it would be in. >> ok. so did you ever -- well, first of all, let me ask you. i know you've described this as being the first lockdown sleeve that you were personally going to be responsible for setting, but you added that you had been around this sort of an operation before? >> yes. and i didn't, i didn't want to mislead anybody by saying, by me saying that "i'm responsible." i'm not trying to stand up and
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take some kind of credit that's not, that's not coming to me. we're just working as a team out there, and i feel like i'm just as responsible for what goes on as the man next to me. >> and i understand that. i think we all do. in the order of the sequence of events that were set forth in that reader's digest-type document, there was something called "displacement" to take place -- is that correct? >> yes. you're referring to displacing the riser, and that would have been after the balance plug -- correct? >> correct. >> ok. >> and after displacement was completed, at some later -- after that fact, after that event, then the lockdown sleeve was going to be set -- is that correct? >> that's, that's correct. >> now have you seen it done differently on other rigs, and that is, that you set the lockdown sleeve first? >> in the mud, in the drilling
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mud. it would have been just another way of doing the same thing, is, is when you, when you get your casing set and you're cemented and everything's good, go ahead and sweep that area, circulate and clean that seed area out, and then come on down and land your lead impression tool, recover it, read it, and run your lockdown sleeve, and then go ahead with your -- finish whatever is required for the rest of the well. >> including displacement? >> yes, sir. >> ok. now, you indicated something and i, you know, i have to tell you that i didn't understand everything you said. in fact, i only understood a part of it, so let me come back to those things that i need to understand. i thought you said that you had, you were going to establish
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a certain distance between the stinger and the plug in order to have enough weight. now, can you explain for me exactly what you were talking about there? >> yes, sir. when you have, when you have your, your running tool like so, the stinger that i'm referring to would be the crossover that mr. mccarroll and i were discussing to go under the tool, whether it be six and three-quarter drill collars or a long string of heavyweight, if you want a hundred thousand pounds hanging under your tool, so when you come down and land out you don't have to put anything in the compression from the top, so you can have the weight hanging from underneath landed out. and i believe the comment that i made, that the only concern that i would have had if they choose to set the balance plug
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first is, i would just like to have enough distance between where the tool lands out for the stinger, so i don't tag cement when we come down and land out. we just want enough room under there of open annulus. >> and the balance plug you're referring to, that was going to be set at eighty-three hundred and sixty-seven feet -- is that right? >> if i remember correctly. from eighty- three to eight thousand, or somewhere in that area. >> and the purpose for setting the plug at that depth was to give you the needed weight to set the lockdown sleeve? >> well, with it being set at that, at that depth, i wasn't concerned with the stinger under the tool then, we had room. >> you had enough? >> yes, sir. >> now in other wells, have you seen the -- and i just call it "cement plug." maybe there's a better name. you've called it "balance plug." but is that plug typically set
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at between three and five hundred feet? and in other words, a much shallower depth, much closer to the surface. >> well, sir, i'm not being rude. i just don't have anything to do with the well planning. when the well is planned out, presented and approved, it's handed over and we do it as instructed. >> mr. skidmore, you're not being rude. no one thinks you're being rude at all. but i'm just trying to understand what your experience has been. could you tell me, at least in your past experience -- i'm not asking you to make judgments about whether you would agree or disagree, but in your past experience have you commonly seen that plug, that cement plug to be set at a much shallower depth? >> yes, i can say i've seen it set at a more shallow depth, and i've also seen it where there's no lockdown sleeve, so. >> all right. now, can you run a lockdown sleeve first before setting that plug?
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>> as far as my concerns and interest would be, i would say of course i can. >> ok. could it have been run first in this instance if the plug had been set at a shallower depth? >> you know, i'm just not going to second guess on their decision. >> i understand. you said you reported to merrit kelly. was merrit kelly an employee of swift or bp? >> no, sir. merrit kelly is a bp employee. >> ok. and he was on the rig, or was he on the bank? >> he's the team lead of our complete group. i'm a member of the group. merrit is the team lead for the subsea wells group. brad tippetts would have been the team lead for the horizon job, for the lockdown sleeve, and moving on to the nile. and i believe we would have had
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a new team lead assigned when we got to that job. >> all right. now in the course and scope of your duties out on that rig, do you normally see, receive the final abandonment procedures from bp? is that something you get? >> no, sir, i don't, i don't get the full breakdown procedure. i'm not saying that i'm denied access to it, i just haven't received it. when i got -- when i come onboard the rig, if i was to go to the well site leader's office and request it, i'm sure one would be provided for me. >> ok. do you know who at bp writes those procedures, or wrote it at least for this rig? >> i don't know who wrote the drilling procedure and all for that rig, but it's all signed off. who signed off on it would have been involved in the -- >> what i'm really referring to
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more than the drilling, because there is a drill plan, i'm really referring to the temporary abandonment procedures. that is a term that we've heard -- and i wanted to ask you about that -- whether you, a, received it, and b, if you know who wrote it? >> no, sir, i do not know. >> ok. ok. now there's a difference between an outer lock ring and a lockdown sleeve, as i appreciate it. do you appreciate there is a difference between those two things? >> between the outer lock ring and the lockdown sleeve? >> yes, sir. >> yes. >> can you describe for me what those differences are, what does one do, what does the other do? >> well, the lockdown sleeve -- now i'm referring to the actuator ring on the top of the lockdown sleeve. are you referring to the locking assembly for the casing hanger? >> you lost me. let's go -- >> i believe we're -- >> well, let's go with what
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you're referring to. i'm going to go with what you're referring to. >> ok. now, what i, what i was referring to was the lockdown sleeve when it's landed, it has a locking mechanism at the top. and this actuator ring actually assists in protruding into that profile of the upper part of the wellhead housing, and that's the sole purpose for running the lead impression tool to let you know just how you're meshing up. >> and were either of these two things run before this well was displaced? >> no. we had not gotten to that point yet. >> did that cause you any concerns, with displacing the well before either one of these two safety factors were put into play? >> not concern. not safety, not concerns as far as safety. it might have, it might have
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aggravated me a little bit, because we weren't going to do it with the mud and we knew we had everything cleaned and swept out, but it was not a safety concern. it was just the possibility of maybe having to make an additional trip, to go in and jet and wash. >> and that, that additional trip that you're referring to takes time. how much time would you say that takes? >> well, probably -- let's see. >> at these steps. >> oh, it wouldn't be a good guess for me. >> ok. >> it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a good guess for me. that's -- >> would you, would you -- you've heard the expression "time is money," i assume, you've heard that before? >> we all have. >> and that is particularly true on a rig where bp's paying close to a million dollars a day -- isn't that right? >> yes, sir.
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>> and so additional time to make an additional trip is a factor to consider, do we want to expend the time or not? that's one of those factors that businessmen look at when they make business decisions? >> and that's all that was in my mind, because if we have a bad reading, then i would have to stand up and fight that battle, or my group would, you know, to have an additional trip ran. >> you mentioned cbl's and you indicated in response to someone's questions you were familiar with what that was. and i'm not going to get into the details, but running a cbl takes hours, does it not? >> well, the cement bond log, it would be all wireline, and it would -- you know, you would have to rig everything up, everything would have to be rigged up and ran, and then after it's ran, it would -- you would need someone qualified to interpret. >> would that take most of half a day, in your experience? >> well, i'm not familiar with
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the crews on the horizon on how efficient, you know, everybody is in it, but, yes, it would take more than one or two hours. >> and waiting on centralizers if they're going to be run into a string, centralizers is another thing to rig up, is that not correct, when you've seen them used? >> well, centralizers would, you know, the purpose on them would be to give a sufficient standoff to have a good cement job to come up around the outside of the casing. >> does it take time to run the centralizers into the string? i may be using the wrong terms, but to essentially install them? >> well, anything you add to a job would add time. the amount of time, i couldn't tell you. >> mr. skidmore, thank you very much. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, sir. anadarko/moex?
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>> mr. skidmore, my name is ky kirby, and i represent anadarko and moex offshore. i hear you say that you have not been responsible or the lead in setting lockdown sleeves, but you've seen many of them done; right? >> i've been around, i've been around the work areas. >> all right. how many have you been around for? >> well, i couldn't tell you. >> rough guess? >> no, ma'am. i'm not going to guess with it, because i haven't been responsible as it being my job to see that this is done until this time right here, where i only had one thing to do when i went out there with them. >> i understand. have you been around to see others take responsibility for more than ten? >> i've been, i've been around
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job operations where this was being done, but i would not be directly involved in it. >> ok. so you've been around? >> yes, ma'am. >> others have been responsible, right? >> yes. >> so how many times do you think you've been around for that when it was somebody else's job? >> well, you want me to just grab a number out of my hat and pull it out -- >> well, i don't want you to make up a number. [laughter] more than five? >> i would say probably, probably more than five, yes. >> all right. >> because how long have we had lockdown sleeves in this industry? and i've been in this industry since 1977. so i have been exposed to it, but i've never been having that one purpose there to do. >> i understand. >> yes, ma'am. >> now you've seen them done in -- you've seen them lockdown sleeves set in mud, you said; correct? >> i'm using the term "mud," where i should -- probably should have used drilling
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fluids. >> drilling fluids. >> the existing drilling fluids that's in the well at the time. >> and of those that you have been around for but not -- it wasn't your job -- >> ok. >> what percentage of them do you think were -- do you understand were set down in drilling fluid? >> well, i -- all right, here's you a number. this is the first time where i had any thoughts over changing displacing out. and maybe what you're asking is, why would i prefer it to have been in the drilling fluids rather than displacing out. >> is it the case -- before we go there, because that will be my next question. >> ok. >> before we go there, is it the case that all the other times you observed others doing it, they were doing it in drilling fluid?
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>> well, it's just, the only way i've ever been exposed to it. it's just finishing up as it is, and then you're displacing every -- once you get everything displaced out, that's when you unlatch, pull your bop, clean your riser and move on. >> ok. so all the others that you've observed were all in drilling fluid and this time around you got a procedure. was it from brian morel? >> the one that i was reading through was the one i got from brian, yes. >> all right. and did that procedure tell you that there was going to be a displacement with seawater down to roughly, something over eighty-three hundred feet? >> or under, under eight -- around 8,000 feet, wasn't it? >> well, my documents say -- >> 8,397 feet. >> i don't have them. you know, i don't have any documents, and i haven't had any since i was on the rig, so i'm going off of memory here with you. >> sure. but it was somewhere around 8,300, right? >> yes, yes.
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>> a lot deeper than you've probably seen before, right? >> yeah. >> all right. and also, this is the first time that you've seen a procedure that calls for displacement before setting down the lockdown sleeve, right? >> it stood out with me, but i have a little more interest in this one than i have before, and my concerns is, i don't want any possibly cause some sort of a problem with the setting of a lockdown sleeve. >> and what was it that you were thinking of was going or possibly could cause the problem? >> well, one of the main purposes for drilling fluid is to carry solids, sediment, cuttings, whatever's in that
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column out, and it had been cleaned. and when you displace out with seawater, you lose that viscosity. so as the riser gets rattled and shook, you can have flakes and different debris fall down, and in so doing, it would be landing possibly in that landing profile of where the lead impression tool would land. and if that was the case, it would give you a bad reading on the lead impression tool. if you have some rust settlement in this profile, it's going to cause you to have an impression of latching higher. and if you do that -- and they call this a good reading, 'cause underneath the lead impression tool you have some indicators that show whether you're down all the way or not. well, if you're landing on something that would dent those indicators, that would give you a false high reading up there,
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but you would still look like you landed out all the way. and in doing that, that would cause you to adjust the lockdown sleeve, to where it would lock in the proper distance that the lead impression tool told you it needed to be in. >> i see. now the purpose of the lockdown sleeve is to hold the casing in place, right? >> yes. >> and the casing can essentially stretch under high temperatures, right? is that true? >> evidently it would, it would help hold it in place if anything was to, it would be like another barrier, another thing to help hold it down. >> so if there was a strong buoyant force caused by the displacement, then you could see the casing rise as a result
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of that, correct? >> well, i'm not an engineer, you know. >> but did you -- i'm sorry. >> but anything that's buoyant will lift. >> did you have any concerns about that possibly occurring? >> you know, we've seen so many casing jobs over the years, when you get to that point, everybody goes to the mind set that -- that we are through, that this job is done. >> well, what do you mean by that, we're so close, that let's just get it over with, or -- >> no, ma'am. what i mean by that is, when you run that last string of casing, and you've got it cemented, it's landed out, and a test was done on it, then you say, "this job, we're at the end of it, everything's going to be ok." now i'm telling you this not from a supervisor, not from
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the well site leader's office, but from the working men, that are out there -- we finished this well, you're thinking ahead to your next job, you're moving on. >> i see. so what you're telling me is that once you get that last bit of casing down, you think, "eureka, i'm on the homestretch" -- right? >> you are. >> "and i don't really have anything to worry about anymore, because i'm pretty much there?" >> no, i didn't say you didn't have anything to worry about. that would be, that's a good supervisor right there, that wouldn't let his, let his guns down. >> ok. now, did you, or did you hear anyone else express concern about the potential of buoyant forces pushing up the casing during the displacement because there was no lockdown sleeve? >> no, i was not privy to any of that. >> did you -- >> i did not hear any discussion in that respect. >> did you have any concerns? >> no, i did not.
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>> all right. do you have an understanding of why a procedure that called for displacement first and locking down after that was created? >> i didn't see a procedure in that way. the procedure that i was looking at when i arrived to the rig was the one that i got from brian, and i believe it was the sequence that we were in. >> and the sequence you were in was displacement -- there had been cementing, correct? >> after the flow. after the balance plug, start displacing out, at that point. >> and then you were going to do the lockdown sleeve? >> and then we would do the lead impression tool and then the lockdown sleeve. >> and did you have any discussions with anyone about why that sequence of events was chosen? >> i asked, "why couldn't we go
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ahead and do this in mud," and i can't even, i can't tell you who i was having the discussion with, but it wasn't going to happen, we were going to go through in the sequence that we were given. >> so whoever you were talking to just said, this is the way it's going to be done, period? >> pretty much. >> did they say to you, "well, why are you asking us that, ross, what difference does it make?" >> no, i haven't, i haven't been challenged on some of the questions that i might come up with, but i am selective on some of the questions. i might give a little more study before i ask them. >> who's the person, who was the person on the deepwater horizon that you were most likely to bring that question to? was it brian? >> well, i -- brian was approachable. we discussed things; we would talk. you don't want to just -- when
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the well site leaders are having discussion, handovers or with their logistics, you don't want to just interrupt in another man's chain of thought, so you'll go to the next one. >> so was it likely brian? >> it was likely brian that i would have been having this discussion with. >> you said brian was pretty approachable and seemed to always want to be helpful, right? >> i found him that way, as little as i know him, but that's the way my impression of him is. >> did you find mr. kaluza the same way? >> who? >> mr. kaluza. >> bob, right? >> right. >> yeah, i found bob and don vidrine both to be approachable and you could discuss things, but finding the time because they were pretty busy through this part of it, with the cement job and the casing and the boats coming and going, they were pretty, pretty busy men
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all through that time of the well, so that's why i did more of my discussions with brian there, just offline. >> you didn't want to interrupt them? >> pretty much. >> did you attend the pretour meeting around 11:30, 12:00, where the day's tasks were going to be discussed? >> i don't recall. >> we're heard tell of perhaps some little argument or disagreement, if you will, between the company man and the oim that appeared perhaps to do with the negative test procedure. do you recall anything like that? >> no, i don't recall any, any argument going on between the oim and the company man out there. >> do you recall hearing -- >> if they had one, it wasn't in the hallway where i would have been able to hear anything.
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>> do you recall any, any time when the company man said, "well, my way is the way it's going to be done?" >> no, i have not. >> ok. since you apparently were asking why wasn't the lockdown sleeve going to be set in mud, it's fair to say that you could have gotten enough weight per your requirements if you had set it down in mud, correct? >> no. the weight that i was referring to was the string that we run underneath the tool. the only, the only concern that i had, drilling fluid versus seawater, was the viscosity in keeping the landing profile clean. that was the only concern i had. there was nothing related to the well or the safety end of it at all.
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>> all right. have you had occasion, given that you've been on many jobs i know, to observe negative testing before? >> no, ma'am. >> did you see this negative testing? >> no, ma'am, i didn't witness it. >> all right. so the procedure that mr. morel gave you -- and i'm sorry if i'm making you repeat yourself -- it was a reader's digest version of procedures; is that the way i heard it described by you or mr. kohnke? >> that was a comment i made. >> ok. was it multiple pages? >> yes, it was several pages, but it covered a large area. >> so was it for the test on the rig for that day, or was it just for the lockdown sleeve procedures? >> if i'm remembering correctly, it was, it took in the, the whole casing job all
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the way through the riser cleaning. >> all right. based on what you read, did you see any deviation from what occurred in what occurred during that day? >> well, when it comes to the drilling end of it, that's not my line, that's not my reason for being there. i'm an old subsea hand, that's my expertise, and the well preparation, the sequence of events, those are not my decisions to make. i might be able to -- i could have discussion concerning it, but i don't make any decisions in that. >> i understand. i was just wondering if in the reader's digest version of what you were given about what the procedures would be and the
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sequence in which they would occur would be if you noticed throughout the day that things weren't exactly going as had been set forth in that document? >> oh, no, i didn't see any flags raised or any, any -- i didn't notice any, any stress between the drill crews and the bp side. everything seemed to be moving, and i didn't hear any verbal challenges at any point during that, but i was not in the drilling office either. >> did you hear during the day at any point -- and i'm not talking about arguments between bp and transocean personnel, i'm really just talking about people expressing concern about, for instance, readings that they're seeing, you know, and they could be doing it jointly, did you see anything like that, any hubbub going on? >> i wasn't involved in it. if there was any, i wasn't involved, and it must not have
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been going on active enough to even catch my attention, not from where i was sitting. >> you were asked if you had interactions with any schlumberger folks while on the rig? >> i was asked that. >> now, you did know they were on there, right? >> i hadn't, had not paid them any attention, because they usually are on there, so. >> do you know them personally? do you know any -- ok. >> i haven't, i didn't know any of the personnel on there. i'd never set foot on that rig until that 16th, so probably 99 percent of the people out there i was meeting for the first time. >> since the incident, have you had anybody share with you what they understood occurred and caused the incident?
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>> asked me that again. >> since the incident, has anyone shared with you what they believed was the cause of the incident? >> no. and i wouldn't have anything to share in respect to that either, because any time you make an accusation, you're accusing someone and it puts a lot of personal blame and burden on that person's shoulders until the investigation's complete. >> all right. i have no further questions. thank you, mr. skidmore. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you, ma'am. cameron. >> no questions. >> thank you. halliburton. >> thank you, captain. >> sure.
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>> good afternoon, mr. skidmore. >> good afternoon. >> how are you, sir? >> fine. >> my name is don godwin, and i represent halliburton. we have not spoken before, have we, sir? >> no, sir, we have not. >> thank you. a little while ago you said that you thought you had borrowed a tool or some tools while there on the deepwater horizon. do you recall that, sir? >> i said that i had borrowed some tools? >> yes, sir. >> oh, no. the crossovers you're referring to. >> ok. >> crossovers with, with dril- quip. >> ok. i wrote down where you said that you thought you might have borrowed those tools, or the tool from halliburton or another company. my question is: were you guessing when you said you thought you might have borrowed them from halliburton? >> no. we definitely salvaged a crossover. i couldn't tell you exactly if it came from halliburton or if
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it came from another basket out there, because charles, the dril-quip hand, was orchestrating it and he was having discussions with the people. >> ok. >> so it was a known that it had been borrowed. >> right. and what i'm asking you, though, sir, is, when you say possibly halliburton, you're guessing that they're halliburton tools? >> yes, that would have been a guess, because it was gray basket, gray tools that came out. >> thank you very much. >> yes, sir. i see what you were asking. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> captain, one follow-up. >> well, let me check my list. please. >> thank you.
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>> mr. skidmore, did you ever mention to someone on the back deck of the bankston, the boat that evacuated you, that at some time prior to the blowout, that you had sent an e- mail to the bp office asking for a snake bite kit? you were overheard saying that. and i want to ask you about that, what that means. >> well, i hate it, but i did. [laughter] >> well, i apologize to have to ask you, but i knew you had and i wanted to get your explanation. >> yes. and i'm afraid just, just my personality might be causing some conflict with some of it. but this was, this would just be in reference to just oh sorry luck you might be having at the time.
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>> i understand. >> there was nothing that i would have been referring to that, that i am seeing that's wrong, because if i would have seen something and recognized it as being unsafe or a threat, i would have taken it all the way to town. >> so -- i understand your explanation, but just to be clear for my understanding. you did not actually send an e- mail saying that, this is something you felt and spoke about on the boat? >> yeah. this is, this is just, just more two men talking back there, that it never should have gone any farther than that. >> i understand. >> but i cannot, to tell you the truth, i cannot remember just, just at what time i might have said that, you know, to someone or what, what we were thinking at the time, because i know that it's, it's probably hard to, hard to believe or
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understand, but myself and my team, our group, we found it, we found it better to be more talkative instead of finding yourself drifting away to a corner to sit over there and look at your feet. after an experience like that, it's just, keep everybody up, everybody keep talking, 'cause we were isolated, we couldn't call up the house or have any communications for a twenty- four period and, so we were talking. >> i understand. thank you again. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, sir. mr. skidmore, thank you for your testimony today. are there any question that we didn't ask you, or any information that you would like to provide to us? >> no, sir, i don't have any
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more information. i just hope i was able to help with some of this. >> yes, sir. thank you. if we need for you to come back in the future, will you make yourself available? >> i believe i would need to, wouldn't i? [laughter] >> thank you, sir. you're dismissed. we'll take a break. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> education secretary arne duncan said today that bullying
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undermines learning in public schools. that is next on c-span. after that, all look at worker safety on oil rigs. and later, in case you missed it, and hearing investigates the deepwater horizon oil rig explosion. on tomorrow morning's "washington journal," a discussion of defense department budget cuts. after that, a recent article on partisan politics in washington from "vanity fair." and then all look at wind energy technology. "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 a.m. here on c- span. >> in christmas of 1968, i was appointed to the eighth seed of alaskas first senior senator. next month will mark the 40th
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year that i have that they honor and privilege to serve here in this great chamber. >> look alike and legacy of former alaska senator ted stevens online at the c-span video library. news conferences committee hearings, and from the senate floor, all three on your computer. it is washington your way. >> now education secretary arne duncan and outlines the department's key goal of ending bullying in schools at the first bullying summit in washington, d.c. today. he discussed how to in bolstering -- and bullying. after his speech, he took questions from the audience.
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this summit culminates months of unprecedented collaboration and hard work across agencies. we have not only joined forces, but more important, we are committed to using this summit to launch a sustained commitment to address and reduce bullying across this country. for all the promise of this summit, it is incumbent on everyone in this room and every educator and school leader to ask -- what can we do sustain that commitment to reduce bullying? why have these agencies not come together for a federal summit on bullying before today? the answers to that basic question are many. but they start and end with the fact that the problem of bullying has been shrouded in myth and misunderstanding for far too long. as educators and state and local
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officials, and yes absolutely at the federal level, we simply have not taken the problem of bullying seriously enough. if too often, bullying gets shrugged off. you've all heard the excuses. you've heard the lineup of reasons to minimize the gravity of bullying and to dismiss the potential of effective programs to reduce it. kids will be kids. kids are mean. she just made a bad joke. he did not really mean to hurt anyone. it was just a one-time thing. bullying may be wrong, but it really is not an education issue. as part of this minimization of bullying is a core belief that bullying is an elusive concept that cannot be really defined. every one of those myths and excuses is just flat out wrong. bullying is definable. it has a common definition and a legal definition in many states. good prevention programs work to reduce bullying.
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and bullying is very much an education priority that goes to the heart of school performance and school culture. the truth is that bullying is ultimately an issue of school safety. kevin jennings often talks about the fact that school safety is a much broader issue than the shootings and gang violence that makes the evening news. bullying is part of that continuum of school safety. it is doubly dangerous because if left unattended, it can rapidly escalate into even more serious violence and abuse. just if you have gateway drugs, bullying can be gateway behavior. too often it is the first that down the road to one of the tragic incidents of school violence that we all watched in horror. as the ceo of the chicago public schools for seven years, we had to deal every day with these issue of school safety. we're simply not doing nearly enough as a nation or as school leaders to keep our children
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safe. keeping my children safe, my students safe, not just in school but in their communities, was by far my toughest challenge. and our inability as adults to secure the safety of innocent children was a petty a that haunts me every single day. no student should be feeling unsafe in school. it is a moral issue and a practical one. the moral issue is plain. every child is entitled to fill safe in the classroom or in the hallways of school and on the playground. children go to school to learn, and educational opportunity must be the great equalizer in our country. no matter what your race, sex, zip code, every child is entitled to a high quality education and no child can get a quality education if they do not feel safe in school.
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it is an absolute travesty of our educational system when students fear for their safety at school, worry about being bullied, or suffer discrimination and taunts because of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or a host of other reasons. the job of teachers and principals is to help students learn and grow and they cannot do that school -- they can do that job were safety is not assured. the practical import of school safety is just as plain as the moral side of the equation. if a school where children do not a safe is a school where children will struggle to learn. it is a school where kids will drop out, tune out, and get depressed. not just violence but bullying, verbal harassment, substance abuse, cyber-bullying, and disruptive classrooms all interfere with the student senate -- ability to learn. have very little patience with the argument that kids will be kids, and there's not much that schools can do to make schools
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much safer. i hate the excuses and the passivity. another effective prevention programs have the power to dramatically improve school environment and school safety. the fact is that no school can be a great school until it is a safe school first. @ positive school climate is foundational to strong academic achievement. that is one week -- that is one reason why in chicago we established school safety as a metric on our report cards for every school, just as we did with academic metrics like measuring the number of students who exceeded state standards in reading and math. what does a safe school look like? as all of you know, it is obvious the minute you walk in that door. a safe school is one where students feel that they belong, they feel secure, valued, and are surrounded by adults that
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they can trust. safe schools also cultivate a culture of respect and caring and have little tolerance for disruptiveness. at a safe school, students do not curse or threaten teachers. they did not spend most of their class time texting other students or tune out on their ipods. students do not roam the hallways. at safe schools, teachers are primarily engaged in helping students learn and grow, and students empowered by feeling safe are more likely to feel free to explore and even fail as they learn. at safe schools, all the students -- all the building's staff pitches in to create cultural respect, at every adult in that building is part of the solution. i have just talked about what a safe school feels like. i have been in many schools around this country that do not feel safe. this is a tragedy we have to avoid. this is i just a big city problem. bullying is epidemic in urban
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and suburban and rural schools, unfortunately. the statistics are frankly staggering. in 2007, nearly one out of 3 students in middle school and high school reported that they had been bullied in school during that school year. that means that 8.2 million young people a year are suffering at the hands of bullies. the most common form of bullying is being made fun of or being the subject of mean-spirited rumors. but more violent forms of bullying are common, too. 1 out of nine secondary school students, or 2.8 million teenagers, say that they have been pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on during the last school year. another 1.5 million students said that they were threatened with harm, and 1 million students reported that they have property destroyed during the school years. cyber bullying is a new and especially insidious form of bullying. in 2007, more than 900,000 secondary students reported
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being cyberbullied. it allows bullies to do their work at a distance, outside of schools, in front of a broad audience and sometimes under the protection of anonymity. new technologies provide bullies with new tools to hurt students in old ways. we of all been told that bullying has been going on in schools forever. but it does not have to keep on going on forever. bullying is not something that school teachers -- school leaders, teachers, or parents can shrug off. .
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>> if you don't stop it when it starts, it usually spreads. most cable can remember in nearly decades later in the feeling of being bullied or bullying another individual. they may feel haunted by the memory of standing by while a friend or classmate was bullied. the fact that those memories are
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seared into our brain suggests that bullying leaves long lasting scars on children. why does bullying have such long-lasting effects? what are the victims of bullying more likely to drop out of school and become depressed? because bullying is insidious. it tends to get embellished in a code of silence and shame. it is underreported because children are embarrassed or don't recognize the behavior as bullying. maybe they retaliation, do not have an adult the trust to talk to about what is going on or think nothing can be done to stop the behavior. the situation is much -- much the same with. >> teachers, parents, and appears of students should be encouraged to expose and
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confront bullying behavior. we want students to learn to be assertive and stand up for themselves. we do not want them to incur up -- to respond with violence themselves. instead, school should cultivate a culture of trust and accountability. it empowers children to tell teachers and other adults when bullying is occurring. it teaches them they should have a sense of responsibility not only for themselves with their peers as well. students who report other students are not tattletales, but acting responsibly to keep students save and hold them accountable for their mistreatment. when the 11-year-old girl got tired of being bullying, she wrote the president. the president wrote back and said it reflects a desire to change her community. i would like her to stand up so we can give her round of applause.
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[applause] >> schools can have an enormous impact in reducing policing. ideally, of news and have a code of conduct as in the messages that, community alike. principals, teachers, and parents send messages to students about how they should be made all the time, even when they are unaware they are doing so. all the hallmarks of great schools, student support, a sense of connection to add notes, bridgette engagement, all of those are hallmarks of state schools. i want to shift gears for a
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moment and talk about a related school safety concern, but the problem of disruptive and disorderly classrooms. so little learning can take place in classrooms that are in a state of perpetual chaos. the department's latest survey data indicate that one in three teachers nationwide think students miss behavior interferes with their teaching. roughly the same proportion of teachers think tardiness and class cutting is impeding learning in their classrooms. students themselves think it is even a bigger problem than teachers. one recent national survey of 10,010th graders and more than 650 high schools, 75% of the 10th graders said that other students often disrupted their classes. in urban schools, the problem is even more severe. 12 percent and secondary school teachers, about one and eight instructors, reported never
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threatened with physical injury the previous year by a school student. 5% of urban teachers said they were actually attacked by a student during the past year. this is inexcusable that so many teachers are attacked, threatened, or face consistently chaotic classrooms. just as you can tell a safe school when you walk in the door, you can absolutely tell an unsafe and when you walk in, too. the broken window theory suggest that the root problem in school is not so much shootings on the playground, but the message of disorder and disruption that -- is the broken window that goes unfixed that signals to students that no one is really in control and no one really cares about them. that is just one more reason schools and districts need to do a better job of setting clear expectations, minimizing classroom disruption, and disciplining students to prevent other students from learning.
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school leadership matters tremendously and school safety. it is still true when violence occurs away from school. everyone knows the time of most anxiety and violent activity is not 12:00 at night, it is 3:00 p.m., right when school lets out. that is one reason why i strongly please support extended school days. after school or in a community- based organization, it is critical to adolescence safety and health the emotional and physical development. does not have to be expensive. community organizations have an important role to play, to work with schools to provide more opportunities. you don't have to have your teacher staying all hours after school. what we did in chicago was open schools and provide after-school programs. we brought in the girls club and
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boys' club, ymca, college readiness programs, counseling initiatives, adult education providers and other non-profit and community-based organizations. we made the school centers of the community where adolescents continue to participate after the school day was over. i believe in the field of dreams theory, if you build it, they will come. our teenagers are looking for structure and positive activities to engage in. as you work to this conference of the next couple of days, i asked to take away a couple of different messages. first, our department has a renewed commitment to enforcing the law, including civil rights law that provides to racial, sexual, and disability harassment. we are committed to collecting much better data and to formulate better solutions. finally, we will be providing more resources to places with the most challenging problem street outside this room, i am
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not sure many educators and parents realize that bullying can constitute racial, sexual, and disability harassment that is prohibited by civil rights laws enforced by our department, the office of civil rights. ocr be issuing policy guidance to schools to explain the relationship between bullying and discriminatory harassment and outline school civil rights responsibilities to protect students from discriminatory harassment. as part of the enhanced civil rights data collection, will also be gathering new and better data on harassment. we understand stopping the play of bullying will take time. it takes sustained commitment. takes resources, and i promise you we are in this battle for the long haul. the department has stepped up its support of the "stop bullying now" campaign, helping fund expansion of the campaign to include a focus on elementary school children.
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as most of you know, bullying start young. we need to reach students and their young enough that bullying is not ok. within our department, where backing the stepped-up commitment with increased resources. with our budget and our blueprint for remove it -- reforming the act called for 12% increase in funding for programs that ensure that students feel safe, healthy, and supported at school. the successful, said, and help these dishes program in our blueprint will enable us to measure school safety, and to build it at the school level. we will provide federal funds for intervention in the schools with the greatest needs. just as important, we will be giving in permission about school safety from sir rank the real experts. that is our students themselves. for the first time, students will be given a formal role in shaping our efforts to make schools safer, even before reauthorization, we are piloting
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this program. historically i have to ask why it in the country have been so reluctant to simply ask students how they felt about their own schools? as important as all the steps are, the parent cannot begin to solve this problem alone. we have gathered so many quarters here because it takes sustained commitment and resources from all of us to meet this challenge. the board of education stands ready to step up to provide leadership and to be a good partner, but we desperately need your help. the challenge requires all the assets of the federal government. i am pleased to have summit partner agencies here today and great leaders like the surgeon general speaking later in the program. preventing bullying will take leadership from state and local authorities. like officials you were here tomorrow from the state of iowa and the district of sutherland county.
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giving students a voice, to formulate solutions and help develop buy in from all members in the community for reform. not surprisingly, academic achievement is up in sullivan county and discipline issues are down. to keep making progress in the battle, we need the support and involvement of corporate, city, a nonprofit leadership as well. this will take action by individual students, teachers, school staff, parents, and concerned citizens, all of us have a part to play. let me close by saying that as part of your leadership, we desperately need your ideas. the summit seeks to collect the most knowledgeable experts on issues involving america at one place and one time to get the best thinking about what needs to be done to bring this played to an end. we will never again to have all answers in our department education. i believe that with the collective knowledge and wisdom of all of you assembled here
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today, we can identify and highlight the most and best solutions. i asked you to be daring, to think imaginatively, to challenge us and yourselves, and to listen carefully over the next day and half period to break the cycle of bullying, we have to be bold. the status quo simply cannot persist. would your courage, imagination, and leadership, i think the summit can be a turning point where america finally tackled the problem of bullying with tenacity and leaves the myth of bullying behind once and for all. think it's a much. i am happy to take any questions you might have. >> that morning. thank you very much. i think that is very inspiring.
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o -- i like your proton using civil rights violations as a way to attack a lot of gender preference, sexual preference, ethnicity -- those types of issues that are often the root of this. how would that work? >> are office of civil rights which has worked very hard revitalizes this. it was dormant for long. we have a fantastic new leader there, and we are seeing real issues around the country, and will confront openly and honestly. that will be moving very aggressively to spot like places we think are not working for children. when the status quo is not working, we will challenge it openly and honestly. that office has a chance to be a significant partner in this effort, not the solution but a piece of the solution that has been lacking for a long time.
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>> big news this week, lots of excitement coming out of the department. how're you tying in this particular issue to actual dollars going to the states, and how can a at a stand that have to take this seriously? >> what we try to do and are blueprints is try and do a couple of things well. this area is one, we are asking for significant budget increase of 12%. i think we have to do a much better job of engaging students. we have to ask what they are thinking, survey, i think from the mouths of babes a lot of truth is going to come. starting to give people the tools and opportunities to ask
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students those tough questions. it is really interesting, we focus so much on test scores and other things. there are what i call lagging indicators. as a country, if we start to do some of these things better, test scores, graduation rates, all these things will follow. getting the word out, trying to put a lot of resources done what we are doing, we are doing a better job and engaging students. >> i am with big brothers-big sisters of america. i am delighted to hear about this 12% increase in the budget. the use the new blueprint that some of those resources will go towards research, specifically,
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what kinds of programs and capacity are able to influence bullying in the classroom and beyond? >> everything we are doing, whether working this area or a whole host of things, we are trying to become a data driven organization. we think there is a lot of practices that are not making a difference. great research in this area and other things. three or four years from now, i hope we are a lot smarter as an organization, and three great research and ongoing data, understanding poughkeepsie what practices are making a difference in dramatically reducing dropout rates, we will put a lot more resources behind those going forward. recognizing we are making a lot of big bets in lots of areas. we know we will not that 1000 and we know will make mistakes,
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but we think will hold -- we will have a lot of successes, too. this is one of those foundational areas where were think we can get a lot better. >> i was wondering if bullies are violating the law, why we don't bring in law enforcement and just handle it? it seems to me we are turning educators into social workers and police officers and everything else, and have very little time to educate our students. >> it is a complex question. when bullying rises to a criminal offense, that may be inappropriate. i would also say there is a lot that we have to do to get tested is before their behavior arises to criminal acts. -- get to students before their
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behavior rises to criminal acts. my goal is not to lock of america's youth. my goal is to help those students who may not have the support at home or in the community. so many bullies were themselves bullied. is a learned behavior. we have to get young children early and give them role models and skills and strategies to behave in different ways. if at the ended the day criminal behavior is involved, then we need to deal with that openly and honestly. my goal is much more on the prevention side and trying to lock up or suspend a whole bunch of students. i don't think that gets us where we need to go. [applause] >> thank you for all your doing honor collective behalf. maybe even lack of resources as related to civic or
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nonprofit organizations. i am curious if you have seen success models were corporations can get involved with resources to help with the calls. >> resources are extraordinarily tough today, and all of your living at. many folks say this is the toughest time we have ever had, across the board. it means we all have to be much more efficient and collaborative. we have to be more productive with what we have. one idea that i have tried to push hard is, i think our schools -- people think we need to double or triple the amount of money. does not necessarily have to be that way. in chicago we run the school from 9:00 to 3:00, and i don't
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know why we continue to build new boys and girls clubs around the country. we have 95,000 schools and our country. rich neighborhoods, border, black and white, latino neighborhoods. every neighborhood has a classroom. they have libraries in gyms, some have pulls. they do not belong to me or the superintendent, they belong to the committee. when nonprofits are struggling financially, i would put all the money into mentoring and tutoring. i think we can become much more efficient that way. having the corporate sector come in and help leverage some of those and make schools the centers of the committee. we started to do this in chicago, a lot of people thought we were crazy. teen-agers do not want to just run out in the streets. they want something productive to do.
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we were limited by our resources. hundreds of teenagers from our toughest schools were trying to get into drama and dance and after-school programs. we got into fundamental battles and who's in charge of cleaning up and who is in charge of toilet paper. it is a complexity that is real. we have to figure those things out. the more corporations can use their scarce resources to support and incentivize and reward credit partnerships, i think at a time when resources are scarce, we will be in this situation for a while. we have to behave in different ways. i think there is a lot of upside. >> we have 67 bullying
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prevention programs, none of which are working in the united states. i would like to have you comment about your plan for supporting some real research to evaluate 67 programs, 42 states with legislation. your comment on that? >> i think we have to figure out, because 67 is a lot. it is probably 64 to many. we need to figure out a handful of programs that are making a proven difference. there is great work going on out there. the research team is a consistent one here, demonstrating not feels good are looks good on paper, what is leading to better student outcomes, and let's take those practices create parental engagement, there are probably
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1067 programs. we can share best practices and shun the spotlight. -- shine the spotlight. coli of the things that are not working and ineffective, making tough decisions. -- calling out those things that are not working. >> in massachusetts, we have this great momentum with the new law, and we are really excited about it. in the public colleges, what we are looking for -- i would like to get college students into the high schools, public and private, to do some of this work. i think we have unique momentum right now. on the same car as drunk driving, basically, that is the
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kind of momentum want to see. i don't want to see expansion programs or $4,000 a pop to go to training. i would like to see colleges, public and private, going into high schools and k-12. i am here to try to learn had to do that, and i would love for you to speak to that. >> i love the idea of getting college students into high school and elementary schools, being mentors. that is our next generation of potential teachers. i think the seventh set up a whole new world of opportunity. -- i think it opens up a new world of opportunity. you can start with 10 students and then go to 20 or 30. it is really just getting in there. not every school welcomes this kind of culture change, if one
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principal says no, not on three more doors. once you start having success, then success builds upon success. you have to be consistent. >> your blueprint, rather than just asking questions and surveys about you than i did the dublin, is it possible to create non-profit organizations to help empower the youth and let them know that we are the ones who are really going to have to make this change in schools? >> that is a great question. [applause] i think the honest answer is we as adults have not done a great job in this area for a long time. i think the use of voice and solutions and dialogue is going to help get us where we need to go.
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whether it is still in government, creating little peace keeping teams in high schools, i think the best ideas are going to come at the local level. i actively encourage you to stepped-up and get your fellow peers to step up, and challenge us adults to do a much better job of listening. i think there is tremendous untapped, unleashed power. seventh and eighth graders are extraordinarily smart about what is working in what is not. we have not done a good job of listening, and i think we need to get better. >> we have a number of programs developed that are effective. the idea of scaling up as a lot easier said than done. i was just wondering what your
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relationship was with the department of education, which teacher preparation. there is a problem with teacher burnout. oh lot of teachers stop teaching after three to five years. i wonder what the role of destructive classrooms and bullying is there. >> that is a huge issue and a huge concern. the number of teachers to come into teaching want to make a difference and have an impact, and they get in there and do not feel supported and do not have classroom management skills. they feel like they are hitting a brick wall at the end of the day. it is a major challenge. none of this stuff has easy answers. one of the biggest complaints, and i have talked to hundreds of great and teachers around a country, one of the biggest complaints is they do not have enough practical experience. they have lots of the erie,
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philosophy, and history of education and not an up of actually working with 30 students in class that make up of a very different background than where you came from. it is hugely important. some schools are doing a phenomenal job and others have a long way to go. at illinois state university, there -- a started to have their students come and live in one of our hispanic communities, stay indoors for six months. it was absolute cockerel immersion. -- living in communities had been fully engaged. that is what areas where schools can do a much better job of hands-on, tactical experience.
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we have to do a much better job of mentoring with this is tough work. we are asking more teachers now than ever before with less resources. great preparation is a big piece of it, but ongoing support and entering is hugely important. the dividends for students is absolutely huge. we want to get a lot better as we move forward. >> thank you for your commitment today. it was excellent. i want ask about parents. we talk to a lot of the parents who are concerned about their child being bullied. what provisions might there be -- i understand supporting use in schools, but parents are concerned. we saw ms. walker where her son committed suicide. how we provide information to families about these issues, with the their job is being bullied or whether they are the bully?
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>> i am taking a much broader context. i think are the challenge that is -- part of the challenge is that we do not do a great job of engaging parents in general. i think parents are the missing piece of the equation, whether or around achievement, climate, or set your whatever. we have not done a great job here. a couple of things we are trying to do, we are looking to double funding for parental engagement, up to $270 million. frankly that is not enough money, but is a 100% increase. similar to the 67 bullying programs, there are probably hundreds of parental engagement programs that look good on paper but are ineffective. this idea that it is easier said than done, we are hard to push hard to bring out which perella engagement strategies are really
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helping in making a difference. we want to do a much better job of asking parents, how do you feel about schools? where are to survey parents. would you recommend the school to someone else? does your child have an adult and talk to? the idea of doing a much better job of listening to our customers, our students, our parents, and then being very transparent with that data. i am absolutely convinced the trends are going the right way. these are easily predictive of eventual student outcomes. we want to put a huge amount of resources behind this, and i want to be clear. so often we talk about real engagement and primary and middle school. we serve radar teams in chicago,
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and one of the biggest things are high schools -- survey teenagers in chicago. they wanted more activities with their parents. it is not teenagers looking for a lot of freedom and distance. they want to connect with their parents. we try to do little things like family bowling nights, giving students and parents a chance or even an excuse to get together. we are talking 15, 16, and 17- year-old. our teenagers are crying out for more contact and interaction with their own parents. thanks for having me. [applause] >> we are delighted that you all are here in. we look forward to sharing this section. some of the questions came up
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earlier with your questions with secretary duncan, and we hope that this panel will be able to enter or least raise additional questions that you might want to wrestle with throughout your workshops and facilitation sessions over the next day and a half. my name is valerie mahone. i am with you ms. kennedy shriver and job institute of child health and human development child maltreatment and violence program director. it is my pleasure to introduce our panel is this morning. we are going to be talking about the scope of the problem with respect to bullying. i will introduce our speakers, and they will have a chance to get your brief overview of their topic. then it will have of facilitated discussion and then we will have time for questions and answers.
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my colleagues and i have had the pleasure of helping to shape this session, and look forward to your questions and engaging with you on this topic. first i would like to introduce an associate professor in child development at the university of illinois. he is interested in promoting healthier relationships for children in educational settings. a goal of his work is to understand the development of aggressive behavior and to devise interventions that take account of children's existing social relationships. next i would like to introduce an associate professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at florida atlantic university. he is a co-director of the cyber bullying research center. he works nationally and internationally with the public and private sector to reduce online victimization and real-
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world consequences. he is a member of the research advisory board for harvard university's internet safety task force and has given training and keynotes to a range of audiences. his most recent book is entitled "bullying beyond the school yard, preventing and responding to cyber bullying." filing of like to introduce darter catherine bradshaw, who is an associate professor in the department of mental health at the johns hopkins school of public health. she is also this as a director of the johns hopkins center for the prevention of youth violence and the co-director of the johns hopkins center for the prevention and early intervention. she is a busy woman. her research purposes on bullying and school climate. we heard a lot about that from secretary duncan. she's also involved in the development of aggressive and problem behavior's and the
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design implementation a violation of school based prevention programs. we also have our program a doctor who is ill and is not able to be with us today. dr. brad shaw agreed to stand in for her and your part of her presentation. -- share part of her presentation. [applause] is a privilege to be at this meeting. here we go. part of what is exciting about this summit is that the history of bullying research is one of tragedy and response of some
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terrible, awful event happening like we have seen in the opening video. we actively, we try and do something about it. he is the tail wagging the dog. this has always been the case in research on bullying. around 30 years ago, there was a situation in scandinavia, three boys committed suicide, for many of the reasons that we are now well aware of, bullying, taunting, and so forth. in response, the professor who is still very active in scandinavia was commissioned by the government of norway to do a great intervention. there he is right there. he had written a paper about three years before saying aggression is one of the most able behavior's there are four people, meaning that if you are aggressive at one point in
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time, you are probably going to be aggressive at a later point in time. very difficult to change. another professor has shown this. aggression in children is very hard to change. it is not impossible, really tough. it is one of the most stable behavior's there is. nonetheless, knowing that, he thought that he could still change aggressive behavior in schools, they could distinguish indiscriminate aggression from the kind of abusive relationships we see occurring in our schools today. the mandate of the norwegian government, he instituted a bully prevention program in virtually every school in the country. involve lots of monitoring. it involved incredible amounts of cooperation and time. very intensive kind of project. in the formulation of this
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project, he came up with the definition to which has already been referred to by secretary duncan on what distinguishes bullying from aggression. and there we go. an unequal power dynamic. intentional action and a chronic condition. bullying happens repeatedly over time. it is not reactive. it is intentional and meaningful, and unequal power -- what does that mean? it does not necessarily mean physical power. at times, especially in cyber bullying, you don't need physical strength to believe. means power. it means control. the paradox of aggressive behavior is that aggressive behavior is both completely maladapted and dysfunctional. also serves a purpose.
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demarcates territory. it is a way of changing someone else's behavior. in school and outside of school, bullying is about gaining power, gaining control, not just physical power, but social power. this is why police tend to be more popular than their victims. they have more social -- why police tend to be more popular than their victims. they have more social status -- might bully's tend to be more popular than their victims. with a bully, there is a victim. it is a relationship, an abusive relationships, relationships of control, of dominance, akin to domestic violence. aggression can be of property of the individual. i am aggressive in one year. i may be aggressive fiver 10 years later. bullying is a relationship between at least two people.
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in the relationship, you wonder, you look for elements that make their relationship viable, adaptive, not good, not moral, but that makes it work for the kid who is being a bully. that is where you start to have to look at the relationship and who is supporting their relationship. hoon the classroom, who in the school is saying that this is ok? it is encouraging relationships that are fundamentally immoral. the social networks at school in communities help make aggression adaptive for bullies. " we do is ask kids to name not just our you believe, are you being harassed, who is bullying whom? what is the relationship between the bully and the victim? because it is such a sensitive
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topic, we don't just ask kids to report on who they feel is bullying them, but in the entire classroom, at least in elementary school. this is a kind of measure we use in research capacity. on the left, cookie monster. he always thought he was a nice guy. he is bullying elmo and shrek. when you put together, when you aggregate the responses of all the kids in the classroom or in the school, you will know who is bullying whom. in our work, and our research work, we cannot tell the teachers, the principals, who is bullying whom, because of confidentiality reasons. but there is no reason why schools can do this, or measure similar to this on their own.
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if bullying is a relationship, and if bullying is supported by some of the kids in the school, the need to talk to the kids, not just in formally, but in a systematic way. ask the children, who is bullying whom in this school? you added up together, and you know. with every tragedy in bullying, there is some indication of why this is so obvious, how come the teachers did not see this? how come the principle but not see this? the answer is usually because they did not ask. they did not want to know. it is not so hard to figure out, in some ways. 50 or 60 years ago, as part of education curriculum, teachers were instructed, were asked to do so seal metric test in their classrooms. ask all the kids in your
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classroom, who you like most? could you like these? who is popular and not popular? use that information about the social currents, the social contours' of this society in the classroom, to make it work. teachers don't do that anymore. they are too concerned about standardized tests. they have this dualism between academic learning and the morals kids are learning in the classrooms, but they should do it. it really would not take that long. when we use this measure, we find something that is pretty interesting. among elementary school kids, third, fourth, fifth grade, there are a lot of boys who are bullying girls. almost half. we have found this in three separate studies. when we have a list of kids are left to are bullied and a list of kids on the right, and we ask kids to line them up, we have many boys who are bullying girls.
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this also reflects some of the concerns that were mentioned previously about sexual harassment, homophobic epithets. when you look at who is a bully and who is a victim, if you do not connect the lines, you don't see the relationship that is there, and that is troubling. so bullying is a relationship of dominance and control, an abusive relationship. interventions do not just look at held a child against rejected or is dysfunctional or deficient. you look at why the bullying is working for that bully and in that school. possibly the most important, you have to track children's relationships. you have to understand what this society of children is like canterbury on school. in a formal way, in an objective
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way, it is a very easy task that is almost never done. what is the social dynamic? also see a metric testing, all the social network modeling, will not ever -- when it comes down to it, schools have to be a place that is welcoming for all children. parents have to support that, even if some of them don't. ultimately, all of us have to see that at whatever age, you do not put yourself up by putting other people down. when that message gets across to kids and adults, and we watched that in the schools, the problem of bullying will diminish. thanks. [applause]
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>> good morning. is an honor to be here. i have in total this what we know and what we can do. we define its cyber bowling as willful and repeated harm inflicted fruit cell phones and other devices. repetition is also involved. we know kids have embraced computers in the internet and cell phones and other electronic devices. we see cyber bullying perpetrated on nintendo dsi.
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that is how we define it. approximately 15% to 25% of kids have been bullied. it depends on it if you include text and video and pictures, and if you are asking over the last 30 days are over the lifetime. a number of nuances of fact that specific percentage. in our most recent data collection endeavor this year, we found that about 21% of youth have been victims. approximately 20% to admit to cyber bullying others. one of every five youth you know is being bullied by someone on- line.
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girls are likely of not more likely to be involved in cyber bullying both as victors -- as victims and offenders. more students -- rumor spreading, gossip, and the like. we also see that involvement in cyber bullying tends to peak in middle school, grades 6 through 8. we think about elementary school being about aptitude testing and getting a feel for the school in vermin. we think about high school where you are getting more self- confidence and getting involved in more extracurricular activities. for me, middle school was the worst. i was extremely concerned about what everyone else thought about me. it devastated me when individuals were spreading rumors are making fun of me and a variety of ways. kids tend to really internalize the harm that comes from bullying and somber bullying at
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that age. most victims know or at least think they know who this hyperbole is. when we think about the internet, we initially think about stranger danger, but that is not at all the case when you consider cyber bullying. it tends to be known appears from the school or the neighborhood. there are a number of very competent researchers to work focusing on this problem. first, there are definite, physical consequences. headaches, sleeping difficulties, and even abdominal pain. physiological consequences are stemming from kids having to deal with the stress and strain the results from this. we are also seeing emotional consequences such as anger, frustration, sadness, and fear. we all had to do with negative emotions, but you have not developed positive coping skills as well as adults have.
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we have identified a link between cyber bullying and self- esteem, in that those who have been victimized tend to have lower self-esteem and those who have not. we have to flesh that out over time to see which came first, low self-esteem or cyber bullying. victims of cyber bullying not only contemplate suicide more often but also engage in suicide were often than their peers who are not cyber bully. you think about rejection and peer conflict and social competence, just the ability to succeed in social interactions. many of us have gotten where we are because we have developed that over time. that is compromised with cyber bullying. finally there is behavioral
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consequences. those who have been victimized in cyberspace tend to be victimized in the real world. those who are believed online tend to be bullied offline. the link was the and violence have also been tied into this. just over all difficulties in this very tenuous developmental point. so there is work to be done. i love that the department education is to john s., rigorous research, identifying the scope of the problem, not only among students but among parents, educators, and so forth. i know the department of education has also encouraged online methodologies for this. information sharing, workshops, and assemblies also really held. there is a very accessible and relevant and hard-hitting way to get the message across about
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acceptable peer relationships and how to keep yourself safe. i know we are going to focus on climate for a good portion of these couple of days, but is really big. it is all tied in to a positive school climate. peerman drink, we talked about getting older youths in front of younger view -- pierre monitoring. having them create audios are some of the sort of pledge campaign to raise awareness about the issue. it is important to focus in on special populations. those who indicate they are not heterosexual or targeted more for cyber bullying and traditional bowling. those with as burger syndrome --
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as burgerasperger's syndrome. research is highly important. we find out that if your peers so verbally, you are more likely to do it yourself. this is not just something we can relegate to cyberspace. it is affecting kids and their behaviors and problem behaviors in the real world. i look forward to chatting with you and brainstorming with you for the next couple of days and theory out an action plan. [applause]
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>> it is quite an honor to be here today. thank you very much. i am pleased to start off with my talk and then vote was a little more on policy and prevention strategies. research on factors influencing children's risk for involvement in bullying often draws on social and ecological frameworks. there is a framework to bullying, highlighting the importance of context in relation to individual factors. the context includes social as well as physical aspects of the environment, which influence social outcomes. not surprisingly, there is increased interest in the link between bullying and school climate. several studies indicate that youth involved in bullying kidder as a bully or a victim have leapt favorable perceptions of the school until less
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connected to school. the more frequently they are involved in bullying, the less safe they feel. more importantly, bystanders are also negatively affected by bullying. researchers have identified social factors that contribute to a culture of bullying. this includes shared believes in attitudes that support bullying and aggressive retaliation. in these context, aggression and pierre victimization become the norm. so-called disorderly or disorganize schools and classrooms have higher rates of bullying and aggressive behavior. the risk for aggression and retaliation is very great within these contexts. yet when it comes to assessing school clement, there are also discrepant views between students, staff, and parents, making it difficult to get a clear picture of the social context of bullying. for example, a recent maryland study found that this out -- staff members grossly
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underestimated the amount of bullying. when we asked staff, 97% said they had effective strategies for handling bullying situations and that they rarely made situations worse when they intervene. this highlights the discordance between the way students and staff are receiving this situation. compared to research john stevenson step, there is little work focused on parents perception of bullying. available research suggests they generally underestimate the emotional and physical harm associated with bullying.bullying .
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i think that is an important target as we think about future education efforts. we consent mixed messages about retaliation which can be confusing.
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they're important developmental differences in how students respond to bullying. no. children are more likely to contact their teachers and parents, whereas team's turn to their peers or tried handle it themselves. that usually means an aggressive type of back. -- of act. pirouettes are particularly relevant for prevention efforts. a common approach is the tiered public health model. one report includes the universal system of activities that affect all students within a defined community or study. that is in the greens on of the triangle. later onset of selected interventions that targeted that subset pretty --.
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some popular models include positive the intervention and support. these types of preventive interventions and efforts can be implemented and multiple levels within a child's ecology, including intervention in counseling, individual students at the classroom level. research highlights the importance of emotional skills and effective communication and coping power. emotional learning problems highlight the significant problems of these programs are on academic as well as behavior while comes. effective classroom management is a critical piece of this equation. there's a growing body of research documenting the importance of school support, a
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common set of expectations, and involves all school staff in prevention activities. effective supervision and clear anti-bullying policies needed. families play a critical role by promoting a context that promotes child disclosure and coping skills. at the community awareness campaign, it can be particularly instructive. it provides all logic for connecting bullying prevention with other programs to prevent behavioral and academic problems. they also seem like doing more programs is better, but that may not be the case. research indicates that on average, children are doing about 14 pilot prevention rather programs. this can often be overwhelming for staff, thereby leaving the port implementation.
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we encourage groups to connect our prevention efforts into a seamless system of support which coordinates with high fidelity and implements across all school context. we recommend developing a comprehensive and long-term prevention plan which addresses multiple student concerns through a set of integrated programs and services. i'll close with this triangle that helps illustrate the was the week and start thinking about integrating the system has its support across the public health continue on. that way we can implement programs that foster multiple competencies and skills in order to prevent a range of problems, including bullying, and respond appropriately when bullying occurs. now will put on my different
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hat. i've been influenced by a lot her work. she was unable to travel. these are notes that i am working from in terms of today's presentation. the emphasis here is on the role of policy. the state of georgia was the first in the u.s. to cut requirements for a school requirements to address student bullying in public schools. that law passed in 1999, the same year as the shooting at columbine high school. currently 43 states have laws addressing bullying and school. this helps to find bullying. some of them provide no definition at all. it typically require states or local officials to develop and enforce policies against bullying, but there is considerable variability in what must be addressed in these policies. for example, most require or recommend procedures for reporting bullying incidents, most require recommend policies
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for investigation of incidents, that includes parental notification. most policies also highlight the discipline for students and training for school staff, in quiet you require state departments of education to develop the proposed model policy that can be emulated on a local level. sadly, relatively few of the state's encourage implementation of evidence-based prevention programs. there's a series of best practices which are based on existing bullying prevention programs in the available concerts -- reserves. one set of recommendations for focuses on what is referred to as misdirection. it's a common approach is used by schools but actually may do more harm than good and are important to take note of. for example, some policies typically mandate suspension forced students who bullied. they have the potential to
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impact a large number of students, given that we know how many students are involved and bullying. they often deter or discourage students or staff from reporting. bullies have problems, too. by sending them home without any type of intervention, they continued down a trajectory for further delinquency. children who bullies are in need of support services to stop their behavior. there're other commonly used strategy to prevent bullying that may do more harm than good. conflict since the there's a disagreement to be resolved between two or more individuals. bullying should be stopped right and treated as a disagreement. group treatment for children who bully may actually make them worse. some research highlights the importance and the potential role for obedience training and
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poorly supervised group intervention for aggressiveness. a contagion process occurs, whereby the bullies reinforce each other's behavior. simple shortsighted solutions are not enough to change the culture of bullying. changing cultural norms is a time intensive activity. it would require a long-term commitment to the change process. day seminars cannot produce these changes. there are a set of 10 principles for best practices. the first one builds on the ecological framework by focusing on the social environment of the school. the sakhalin emphasize the role of data, collecting affirmation as we heard about this morning from the students who understand were some of the hot spots and activities are happening. parents as well as staff can get
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a full perspective on this is question. this data can be helpful in getting support for bullying prevention, helps them on the problem. another recommendation focuses on integrating our connecting programs having a staff responsible for overseeing that. it can include students at a high school level and certainly parents, a diverse set of teachers and administrators. training is critical, especially about how to reinforce rules. how to increase supervision in those hot spots. they can receive training about intervening consistently and be rewarded and reinforced when they do entering. challenges for moscow programs include class time to wesley do some of the stop.
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and that is always a challenge. and the bullying ledger, spending about 20 or 30 minutes on a weekly basis reviewing some of these issues is a very important piece. when you look at a curriculum activity, it might be two or three times a week that you spend that time. over time, we encourage administrators to make a five- year commitment to implementing the program. they can have a new program that turns over every year, but having the leadership and ability that they will give a program and try for a number of years and a brief period of time an action plan, it is in very important. change will not occur overnight. with regard to bullying prevention programs, or specific strategies the fiscal might be using, a series of studies of the past years examining the extent to which particular models have an impact on bullying, and unfortunately the
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pontiff from the studies have been mixed. some studies suggest that certain models are affected, and other analyses concluding that they are very limited. once the study examined the impact of 14 and attacked as bullying programs and concluded that programs produce "a reasonable rate of return on investment." that is not good enough. we need to have a much stronger commitment to producing sound research in this area. another more comprehensive and rigorous study was conducted more recently and reviewed over 30 programs and 59 studies, and they concluded that the hold- school programs can be effective but they vary by the activities as well as implementation. it concluded that the programs work best.
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any determine their effectiveness. different populations and particularly in urban settings with minority youth were models have rarely been tested. research is needed to determine which components are critical for sacked -- for success. thank you. >> ok. balance the division of prevention at the centers of disease control and prevention. we're quite a move to audience questions, but i will start off by asking all our palace to give us quickly your perception of what is the next up for research and bullying prevention? if you had at your disposal research funding, what would you invested in?
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you might need to turn that on. >> the next that is to talk to kids about bullying and who is bullying in their classrooms and in their school. that is the next up. develop technologies that are already existing to enable that information's to be understood in a simple way by teachers and school psychologist. if you talk about bullying in a school-based setting. the next epoch ask about what is going on in their schools. i was it a second step from a research program, catherine alluded to this at the end of her presentations, is to see if there are really bullying prevention programs that are affected. as it tore the indicated in her question the secretary duncan,
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less than meets the eye sometimes in terms of programs that work. that does not mean that there are not programs that are not working. what it means is that we do not know about them. we really have not formalize them in a way that we can understand if they work and why they work. i think with bullying prevention, as in any other field of endeavor, people want to say that their products are effective. there is a great hope among all of us that they are affected. you have to look at that more carefully. number one, taught the kids. number two, find out what works. >> i'll like to echo what phil said. >> i think that there are a number of programs that have been developed. some have been very thoroughly developed and we do not have the
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resources currently to test them. and test them in the way that they need to be tested, with large enough sample sizes. most of these are whole-school interventions, such unique have trials of 40 or 50 or more schools to be of the detected -- to be able to detect significant effects. one person is not only relying on student reports, because they may not be sensitive to the changes that we're seeing, but also observation data collection,. nominations -- peer nominations, and so on more comprehensive assessment system to test and a sensitive way the changes that might be occurring. >> if there is a third thing, not necessarily in the order priority, but secretary duncan mentioned this.
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classroomer's management ability. people are running extracurricular activities, coaches, school psychologist -- anyone involved with kids. but let's just say teachers as a way to simplify. we on note that some teachers, teaching a class even apart from the content matter is about establishing a dynamic and social atmosphere and not letting that get out of control. when you have teachers, second grade teachers to break down into tears in their classrooms become a cause kids are shouting at them, that is not a teacher who can manage your classroom. a classroom is a society, a small tiny society of 20 or 30 kids. how do you manage this diverse group of children? when the kids are not just 20
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kids sitting in a row or tasks, but they are connected, or networked, whoever relationships, positive relationships,-relationships, and different characteristics. does the teacher know that war is the teacher focused on x, y, and see? what we're working on now is watching teachers in the classroom and outside the classroom and seeing which teachers are doing what that helps promote a positive social atmosphere in the class from the get go, so they do not lose control, so kids are with the teacher, and you have an orderly class environment. focusing on the adults in the schools would be a third very important step. >> are there questions from the audience? [inaudible]
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>> i am the author of a girl called "of rollout," talking about psychological aggression among girls. i am the assembly speaker the goes into schools and do a lot of public work on this issue. i found it remarkable that one of your slides indicated that girls were bullying boys 8% of the time and bullying girls 13% of the time, where she found double-digit rates for boys bullying girls. how are you defining bullying? and the reason i wrote my book is because the definition of bullying work excluding psychological aggression, in particular relational aggression. how are you defining it? and do you think that the bullying is looking at the range of aggressive, particularly those most likely to fly and amid the radio -- plight
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underneath the radar or a margin you make an excellent point about bullying among girls. in our world, the kids -- my work is primarily elementary school kids. they ignore that. figuring out -- a figure out what bullying means on themselves. when you ask the kids he was bullying whom, they tend to pick out the boys. [inaudible] >> it is partly our responsibility to make sure the kids understand that, because girls grow up believe that this is just girls being girls. they do not learn to define this as aggression. and i'm sorry to interrupt. but if you ask them to save what
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bullying means, but will reflect back what the culture is telling them what bullying is. the research should not be repeating some of the negative messages about bullying coming from the culture. substanceree with the of your point. the measure that we had and what can -- and what kids tend to report is not sensitive to that type of bullying among girls that you have been focusing on. i completely agree with you on that. i agree with you less on asking the question where we reinforce these sex roles for bullying. what we're asking is according to the children, who seems to be a bully? and when we ask that question -- a simplified version of it -- we have four pages. page number one, who are boys that bully other boys?
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there's a column of boys on the left and a column of was on the right. and then we do boy/girl, girl/boy, and grow/core. >> hill is convincing other people not to be a friend? who is giving the silent treatment? by point is that kids to find bullying and up. merrill way. -- mike point is that kids definable lane and a very narrow way. it is not a opt-in to their range of how kids hurt each other. they're all kinds of cyber cruelties that occur that kids do not understand is cyber bullying because there's a lack of awareness and a connection to what that word means. >> i agree. >> that behavior needs to become a part of the research. i do not agree that 8% of girls bully boys.
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i think those numbers are bigger and i want to make sure that those questions are being asked. i appreciate your candor. >> we talk about relational aggression, and i asked about what types of behavior that they're doing. we can talk about the definitional issue that we adopted from norway, we adopted the program, so many of us look at social aggression and we're really focused on the dynamics across gender. i would also point out that there is a recent analysis at the university of arizona that showed very clearly that boys and girls do not differ across the national or relational and social aggression. this is not a pearl phenomenon. the process is different, and the outcomes are more severe for pearls. we need to focus on their very
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aggressive corporate hour in chicago public schools. the girls are scarier than the boys. you cannot think that these girls are just spreading rumors and excluding each other from a weekend party. in fact, growth riding is real. -- girl fighting israel. it is our middle class white girl phenomenon. it plays out differently in african-american. paris. we need to consider coltrane context as well. the culture and context as well. >> the american institute for research. i think what the framework -- the question on tw of things. -- don two thanks. -- on two things.
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they talk about the fact that there appears to. -- there appears to be a sealing all bullying impact in terms of the current literature, including this. it is typically the authors of the educational research the started to suggest, and i am one of them but i am not the only one, if you really want to have an impact, if you have to think about how we connect bullying intervention with other things that people are talking about. they are old-school, and it is not one of the other, and it is probably a combination. something that you have been working with. how those things would connect with anti-bullying endeavors. i would add one more thing and that is a big question. >> i have a great answer for you. [laughter]
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>> but you are a smart lady and a smart researcher. i have not heard of a lot of people talking about other things that impact in schools other than academic pressure. it is the fact that we have issues of racism and homophobia and things like that that really impacts how kids behave. we have also not touched teacher passivity, and we have models for how to help teachers become more effective, because there is more work that is necessary. but i am treated with the fact that while i am a great fan of the teachers in the u.s., they do not talk about the fact that some teachers bullied. when i do work internationally, in the survey one of the questions that i have is, to students, do you feel bullied? you ask, why don't
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whether teachers also due bullying? how can we think about what we're doing more comprehensively, particularly at a time when which -- when in the blueprint, the department of education is talking about focusing on the entire school climate, and there is this interagency effort that really connects to the institute of medicine's work about the fact that there are common risk that cut across everything. which is your last graphic. >> i think it is a born to recognize it can prevent bullying what the program that does not have bullying in the title. we will hear a little bit later on today about the social motion awareness, promoting alternative thinking, along with -- that has been used in pre-k through grade
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5, and we're bringing that up the middle school level, where there is avoided evidence-based programs. i think that we can turn to some of the other models that have been more effective at preventing violence to promoting academic achievement, because they're targeting some of those similar types of risk factors. we had a conversation in the elevator last night about getting into bullying inning and aggression beginning. the overlap is the focus on bullying. but these kids are involved in a lot of other things. they're using substances, a might be at risk for decaying involvement, so i think we have to recognize that while we have a relatively specific focus here today on bullying, there are a range of other programs that we can look at. some have been looked at. but we and not collecting the right kind of data and we're relying too heavily on self reports and not getting into some of the other methodologies that would be sensitive to that.
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>> i wanted have one piece there. the focus on the multi component programs is really great. we're doing that, but we are at gaf at what to do with second- tier and third tier. we have this great framework in which, along with our advanced models and other school wide prevention models, and they're doing the universal stop but i have to teach these kids. what do i do with them? and we're lacking interventions that our research-based, pullout programs for kids. not to say that we should not continue to pursue the school rights, but it will be effective when you also have four indicators and programs for those higher education kids. 8% of kids chronically involved in bullying and victims. they're going to see -- they're going to need more. as we move forward with
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research, we need to keep our eye on what to do with those other tiers, consistent with the department education emphasis on respond to enter fitch and approaches, that we're getting a budget is that and are responding to a universal system and they're going to need something more intensive. right now we're lacking in evidence-based on what to do with those kids. there are other programs and violence prevention, one has a strong family component that has been shown to be affected as reducing violence and aggression. i don't think he has collected -- collected data on bullying, per say. another focuses on changing norms about violence and getting kids to regulate emotions. that would be the tip of the triangle for people in need more defective support. all of these are all well and good if it cannot get people to show up to them.
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that is also a challenge. hand in hand goes with developing the intervention and doing the research around the implementation science, and what has become attracted the families, why they would want to come to this, how do they really benefit? >> we are running a little short on time so with a good fit in as many questions as possible. we will cover the back and then over here. >> i am from penn state university. i wanted to comment on something you said about the definition of bullying. i speak of the country and i do listen to students and parents and teachers and administrators, and one of the things i hear is that there is not as common definition of bullying. that is what really stands in the way. teachers really fill stymied by the inability of backed up by their administrators said they will discipline the students in the classroom, and then they would go to their minister raiders and their investors will say, that was not bullying.
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i do not consider that to be bullying. or a child will go home until their parents something happened at school, and the parent will call the school and the school will say, that is not bullying. we did not discipline for that. i have even done group exercises were afpak children right out, what is bullying to you, and parents, and teachers, administrators. i compare the results and they are all vastly different. how we get a unified -- i heard some secretary say that we're going to have a unified definition of bullying. i think that is the biggest task before us. until we are all talking about the same kind of behavior, everybody is going to be working from a different definition and developing different programs in talking about different things. that's why i see teachers burning out. they are working on one kind of behavior and not of their peers are there to support them. that bill totally lost in the
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system. -- they feel totally lost in the system. catherine, i know that you mentioned that as well. >> i think that this is a heated, ongoing debate within the field. researchers dissipate -- disagreed. when it's done a lot of work in this -- i get my papers back with the same kind of comments. some research says that you would get different findings if they give a different definition or if you break out the individual papers. that is a real problem and perhaps that is another issue that could be explored in some of the small concessions off about the potential utility of coming up with a consistent definition that the u.s. department of education if puts forward to help researchers monitor in their own studies said that they can draw some comparisons. >> for me, it's a kid feels that
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he or she has no home at school , it is unsafe at school, feels that the school as a hostile environment, that to me is and not for action. -- is enough for action. every need -- every kidneys to feel at home and stay in school. when they do not, then as the secretary says, everything goes to pieces. in that sense, i would take the child word if the school as a hostile environment. >> can we take a question from here? >> on a member of the youth representation to date. i wanted to say that i appreciate your emphasis on this. i think that that is the way to go. i think and a lot of the research on this issue, the bullying prevention programs that we all hear about on a regular basis are often
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emphasized and people just focus on the ones that people put money into an all-out resources. but people often forget about the ones that are student-led. the students themselves, but a lot of programs into a lot of work in their schools maybe they're not called bullying prevention programs but they are. as a student. they say that we're having this program and everyone grows as they walk into the auditorium and have to sit for an hour-and- a-half and listen to how we should treat each other. whereas students will going to heighten -- hundreds of classrooms -- i did this and another group did this -- and talk to their students. students will listen to status. my question for you, if in your research, are you looking at the student-led programs and are you willing to support them? [applause] >> i will say quickly that i agree with you. these programs are coming up more and more often and they have to be formally a value added.
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they're being encouraged but we have not focused on clear evaluation yet, but we will, and that is why we're here. >> i serve as executive director for the national association for school resource officers. i do not want to say i blame dr. crenshaw, but thank you for bringing to the comment to the forefront of your presentation trying to get around a number of -- and handled on the number of issues facing our kids. i presented this question to the panel along with looking at it from a research point of view. as best as i can discover, we have not lost a child to a fire in this country and over 50 years. if someone can correct me, please do. i ask the question why? the answer is redundant, we protect them. you have fire extinguishers, yes
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sprinkler systems, you have evacuation drills, etc., etc. is there a model there? it is an easier situation to deal with because it is tangible, but we have sustain that for 50 years. is there a message there? the second question that i have representing a group of law- enforcement officers, boots on the ground people, i know that i speak for them, and i think i speak having spent some years as a school's administration, we have got to get a handle on how to approach for research. if you what we can deliver in schools because a finite resources. i will go back to the fire example. one-third of the cost of the building is dedicated to fire prevention. look at what work. in terms of bullying, gang-
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related, that as a great program, we have there, but we have to find a way to -- that do not know how to do that. people in the schools can get their hands around it and i think a child being bullying or the bully who has an issue, they're going to meet some of the criteria were that they are prone to join a gang, whether they are prone to be in the drug culture, etc. i believe that is where it is that. >> i like the model. i think it is invented and we should perhaps look to it and check our resources, so that they become not so much of an issue, and implements a man does it there when it comes to kids, not just school wide, but classroom levels, teachers, students, educators, committee members -- that will provide redundancy that we're looking
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for. >> you bring up an important part about how we can involve education and support personnel and other people that are non- teaching staff. we've been working want one group to understand what kind of support for resources and non- teaching staff including a resource officers and other care professionals, what support they need, because that that rate -- play a constructive role. our research indicates that they're not getting the training they need around policy and they do not believe that intervention and bullying is necessarily their roles. we need to do some additional support so that in training around that, more so that they are less likely than teachers to say that they thought that bullying was a priority for their job. we really need to take a constructive roles, how to involve them. you also bring up the program dare, which needs rigorous research study. dare has been shown to be an
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ineffective program. we need to make sure that we capitalize on the active group of resource officers and police officers more willing to be engaged in involved in intervention programs, and find a way to get them involved. there is unfortunately one of the programs that we do know now, a new dare trial, it is going on now, but it caused bridget increase substance used among -- substance use among youth. thank you for commenting about those other people in the building that we often overlook when we're talking about bullying prevention. >> i'll have to jump in here because someone is going to get the heck out present. -- the hook out pretty soon.
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we're going have breakout discussions that will follow this, and there should be discussed in the bar reconstructions in the future of bullying prevention. i just want to mention that the breakout sessions are going happen right now. the room for the breakouts will be on the sticker that is on the back of your name tag. if you have not received a sticker, please go to the registration desk and making it the stickered their -- you can get a sticker there. i like to remind the press that all break out sessions are close to the press. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]
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>> we will hear more of this education department bullying summit tomorrow morning. live coverage begins at 8:30 p.m. -- 8:30 a.m. eastern on c- span2. the senate is back in tomorrow morning at 10:00 eastern, picking up a resolution to honor ted stevens who was killed in a plane crash this week. the senate also expects to clear a $600 million borders a character -- border security spending measure. we talked to a reporter about that legislation.
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>> the news editor of "the hill," the senate is coming in for an unexpected session. what we say? >> at least two senators, man for the border security bill. we know charles schumer is going to be in town for this, but we do not know of anyone else will come in. >> what will it do? >> it will find national guard troops to go to the border and allowed for unmanned drones to go across the border. it is a reflection of how illegal immigration has really taken -- come to the forefront of the political campaigns in the midterm election. both parties want to show that they are getting tough and trying to stop illegal immigration. judy imagined charles schumer and another member. what about republicans? will there be there? >> we did not have any confirmation of republicans
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coming and none are required to. harry reid and mitch mcconnell have come up with an agreement where they both say they have unanimous consent of their caucuses to approve this bill. there is no requirement for any republicans to show up tomorrow. >> alaska senator ted stevens died in a plane crash on monday. all the senators march -- markets pass it? >> we do not know exactly. we know they will be including a resolution honoring the former senator. senator murkowski, his colleague in alaska, is working on that, and we have not seen the language of their resolution yet. >> how unusual is it to have this kind of summer session? >> pretty unusual. it happened in the past. i believe that members of the senate came back for resolution dealing with terry's shy of -- terry schiavo.
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>> after the senate this is this sort session, when they expected back? >> not again until september 13. that will be here for another four weeks and then they will be out of town until november. >> the news editor of "the hill," we appreciate your time. >> thank you very much. >> on tomorrow morning's "wise and internal," a conversation on the defense department budget cuts. after that, a recent article on partisan politics in washington. and later, a look at the viability of wind energy with the virginia tech researcher. "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span.
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but tv has been finding out about the new books coming out this fall. >> is an interesting memoir, seeing a good -- uncurl going up in the 1950's becoming the first female secretary of state. he is telling us about health care reform. this is an account of what it is like to be on the campaign trail with her dad. we're hearing that it will be hot. >> learn more about the votes coming out in our fall preview this weekend. for the latest in nonfiction authors and books, what vote tv every weekend. get the whole schedule at our website. coming up shortly on c-span, a hearing investigates the april deepwater horizon oil well
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explosion. and up next, look it worker safety on oil drilling rigs. >> what did you find that in covering this story? >> mark and i were involved in an investigation looking at how well the minerals management service had been investigating actual accidents on rigs. we wanted to see if they were the ones investigating the oil spills and how well they had done that job before. in the course of doing that work, we were gripped by the absence of investigation by the rig inspectors for the federal agency. mostly because, not because of fines levied because it you ever
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work, not because of penalties and violations that the companies were cited for, but because of the events leading up to the accident, even at minor or lead to the death of multiple workers, the events leading up to it shows chaos, lack of communication, many workers having no training or very little training in the exact excitement that they were being given that day. often it was windy, dark, stormy seas -- you name it. and it was frightening to think of this is a workplace. >> your article starts to talk about of finding pace. it talk about an incident where a crew shows up at an oil rig and they basically had very little training and experience. >> remember, the federal regulations require these companies to give employees some safety briefing in their manuals for safe operations of the reagan what to do in terms of an emergency and how to
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handle evacuating from this huge rig that is hundreds of feet of the seafloor. what you learned is that these guys arrive to well the something, they had had two hours of sleep, they woke up to work in the dark, they came out on a boat for 10 hours in a choppy seas, and while they are working in the dark, they miss the safety meeting held to discuss the assigned task. you can see that this is pretty frightening. and one of the workers on that route actually went to a supervisor because he was afraid that they did not what they were doing well enough, and something bad was going happen, and when he came back, he watched one of his co-workers fall to his death. >> people recognize that will give work is dangerous work. you point out about where rates and terms of the dangerous jobs. what is the level that one can reasonably expect or the
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government expects safety is not being met? >> you look at these reports by mms and it feels like a paper work exercise. bobby inman as does its work as a police officer trying to figure out what happened here, what caused the accident, they often find that the company failed the followed federal regulation and rules set by the interior department for safe operation. even though they find that there is evidence of that, that gross negligence and that failure to obey the safety rules, by training the employees, there's not really any accountability. there is never any real punishment for that, at least not any of the reports that we read. there is one that i read very night crane operator lifted the crane by accident in the ocean, and the grain falls off the side
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of the vote, off the platform, and ultimately into the gulf. he explained that he had very little experience and had never operated this crane at night, and get his job assignment is night crane operator. he did not know that the action he was taken was a violation of everything safe in crane operation. >> utah to the director of the international drilling contractor association the rig its a lot of these claims and says that most operations are pretty safe operations, and what sort of evidence did he give you to back that up? >> he did not give us that, pere se. the data that we relied on was from minerals management. is it that many companies have extensive training, extensive
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safety briefings, they make plans for assigned task, but what we saw in the words of the rig inspectors who are doing the investigation that these basic minimum requirements were ignored and flouted regularly. >> in destination of the coast guard heard from the one who talked about the alarm system being disabled and shot off on orders from executives to shut off on orders from the status. they were unable to hear the warning on the deepwater horizon. did you find other examples of that? >> that was a fascinating and common complaint in many of the investigations going as far back as the late 1990's, that all arms were shut off meant to alert people. all sorts of valves were bypassed, to tell you whether you were properly pushing water
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off of the edge of the platform. ballots that were supposed to alert you to the potential of fire, that were supposed to alert you to the potential of overload of the circuit. it was a pretty common thing. and it did not always merrit of fine or even a citation of a violation. i was also struck by just how often this basic procedure required called a joint safety analysis for each job. the rig operator is supposed to make an analysis of how to safely do that job and then read all the employees on how to do this. over and over again in the accident reports, you find that the company never, ever briefed anyone on what the task was, and the employees would just be yelled at on all-out platform to do things that are confusing to them. >> its has let you immerse yourself in the issue of oil rig
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safety. what is next and what should we look for in terms of articles? >> we do not usually tell what we're publishing before we publish it. but i would say that we are hearing that there is great pastrn about the agency's administration of existing laws, but also fear that perhaps some of the regulations were intentionally week, that they were pro-industry and not meant to rally police said. there may be an effort by congress to clamp down on these and make it very specific when the company should be fine, what should be penalized, and maybe even when a rig operation should be shut down if unsafe conditions are found. >> the article on oil rig worker safety of the "washington post," you could find that on the web site. just search for oil rig in you will find it there. thank you for joining us this afternoon.
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>> thank you, brian. >> now on an investigation into the gulf of mexico deepwater horizon explosion which killed 11 people in april. we will hear from the engineer stephen bertone the survive. he said that the computer experience blackouts and maintenance issues months before the explosion. this was in kenner, louisiana and is over three hours. louisiana, is over three hours. >> mr. bertone, for the record could you please state your full name and spell your last name?
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>> mr. returning, we do speak into the microphone please? >> is the red light on? >> how long were you electrical supervisor, sir? >> seven years. >> was that all on board deepwater horizon? >> no sir. >> what other rigs have you been on? the have experienced outside trans ocean and global santa fe? craigslist art in the oilfield, i started with self drilling and they were purchased and then again purchased by trans ocean. >> how long have you been assigned to the deepwater horizon? rex's 2003. >> how long had you been the chief engineer? >> since november 2008.
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>> was there any safety problem of interest on the deepwater horizon, considering your job responsibilities, prior to the incident? i was going to try to have an open question to see if he had any step that he had on his mind before i went into detail. were there any problems with a chair, b,chair or c chair? >> i do not recall. >> can you define what the a chair is? >> it is where the driller said. >> what is he monitoring? >> he is monitoring the block placement, top drive to work, the depth of the well, palms,
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and so forth. >> was there ever an incident associated with loss of electrical power? >> during the bid or prior to? >> prior to prevent yes, there was. >> when was the latest one? >> i don't recall. >> was there any problem with the no. 4 thruster? >> yes. >> and how long had that been going on? >> roughly about eight months. >> were any alarms bypassed for the activation of to any general or visual alarms for any high death situations? -- high gas situations? >> i don't really know how to answer that. >> i did not hear you, i am sorry. >> i don't know. >> or any alarms bypassed on the deepwater horizon?
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>> i don't know. >> you are the chief engineer and you don't know if any alarms were bypassed? >> i not in control of those alarms. >> who is in control? >> the bp operators. [unintelligible] >> if there was an alarm that was bypassed, would it have to be under your approval? >> yes, sir. >> let's go to april 20. i have your witness statement in front of you if you want to refer to it. can you please give us the detail of that date -- that day and up to the incident caused more >> from that time in the morning when i woke up? we had 86 got 30 meeting between the captain, a senior tool pusher and myself. pusher and myself.

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