reason we have a suicide barrier and the reason we are having legislation like this is because of the parents and the families because they are the ones that hurt the most and i would imagine part of the therapeutic thing, you've got to tell this story and telling it in the right place and the right time can be very effective. so seth's law does require that if you witness an act of bullying, that you must report it. >> is that for anybody? >> anyone, but particularly teachers. there is a -- sometimes we see things that aren't very pleasant and if you've ever taken it to muni, you know what i mean. your tendency is to turn away. i heard the word faggot on the play ground when i taught. the

teachers were intimidated, they didn't want to be seen to have any empathy because that might reflect on them. it's crazy but that's part of the oppression. when we started to work on the legislation, i tried to channel myself back in the classroom, i taught for a number of years. we're hoping seth's law is the first of many. in addition to their reporting you also have to document, we feel like this is the science of it which, you know, sounds a little sterile when you consider the emotional loss, but that you document each incident as it happens so you have a record and you also look at the climate, the culture, and also the perpetrator. we have a second piece of legislation that calls for the restoretive justice element that people were talking about with regard to bullying, not

just lgbt kids but in general. there was a sect committee this year of men and boys of color and that committee came out with a number of pieces of legislation all based on alerting to more programs, actually codifying the issue and also consequences and solutions and particularly with an accent on looking on is suspension automatic, is expulsion automatic. cyber bullying, another dimension of all this, the new technology, we're all catching up, there are two, three pieces of legislation that i co-authored, i am not the sponsor, that deals with cyber bullying. i will say the social networking folks have been very cooperative about that. so just, in sum, we have

sacramento's intention, ladies and gentlemen, we are waiting for the pope -- i mean the governor it -- to sign these bills. it's a very mechanical things but anything you can do to encourage the govern rr to sign the bills that deal with this issue. unfortunately they are a drop in the bucket, they don't bring seth back or your son or your daughter. we are quite aware of that and i think that's a thought that we always are going to hold in our minds because that will help influence further legislation. this is a good segue, probably, to mr. torres. we work very well with his department and he's extremely receptive and action-oriented. >> i think that's great that we have so much cooperation with departments in sacramento. that's great to her. go ahead, expand on that.

>> thank you to the u.s. attorney for gathering us to the. we have come a long way but as the parents expressed so poignantly, we have so much farther to go. we can pass laws but how do they get enforced, how do they get actualized, how do we have the accountability? more than that, as tony smith was talking about, creating caring climate, a culture of trust and respect. and that's hard and needs to, top down but also bottom up. i just recently viewed the movie bully and brought back a lot of memories, it brought back a focus on just the cruel course of bullying and the insensitivity, the interviews with administrators and school personnel. i don't know if any of you have seen the movie or a preview of it, it's just an

appalling, republic prehence sibl, the ignorance . my beloved niece took her own life a couple miles from here. she was a special needs child and it's hard to know what happened, but this story of grief and then the turn around in the movie was really positive because it emphasized the positive that was coming out of the tragedy. so for rob and for the mom over here who grieves, you have the idea i am somebody. in the movie there's

tee shirts, i am somebody, everything starts with one. we got to go from here forward and replacing hate with hope. so those were good themes that came out of that movie. the department of education, we're overseeing 6.3 million students' lives for a great part of their life as a young person they are in school. how do we create the climate as tony was speaking about, richard carenza, how do you get down to the locker room level, the football field level, how do you deal with it on campus. the state has a training program on bullying sensitivity and bullying, we're one of the few state training programs in the nation. budgets are tight and to implement the new laws as tom has taken leadership to

really spearhead that change, we're going to need some resources, we're going it look to foundations and reach into budgets, how do we materialize the reality of those changes that are needd? so we have some ideas, we're going to do a survey of all the school districts, there's a thousand school districts, 10,000 schools, we're going to ask the schools do you have an anti-bullying policy? they are supposed to have, a new law was just passed saying you should have an anti-bullying policy as part of your safety plan? have they done it? sort of a gentle reminder this is important, in the midst of crazy budgets and real chaos due to the bad economy and some of the massive cuts the schools have endured, this is so important because a student can't learn, we know, a student can't learn if they are fearful. they will skip school, they will not come or when they are there they are not able to concentrate and

learn. so a school safety environment is no. 1 and we know that when you have that safe environment it's backed up by respect and trust, students will learn better, they will attend school better and academically they will do well and socially they will do well. so socially we're very concerned about implementing at the ground level these laws tom has led the way in enacting. >> but there are a lot of people who don't think this is an issue, unfortunately, sadly. i know you are a big believer in this in mental health and good physical health and the link to academics. could you talk about that, please? >> all the research points to having a healthy school environment, having health in your life, many students, a quarter of our students in california have poverty, a quarter of our children have no health care. what was a million students a year and a half ago is now a million and a

half. when you have good nutrition and good health, you will learn better. it goes hand in hand with good mental health and a good school environment. the research points out, we want our kids to succeed and if we're going to do that we have to deal with bullying as part of a larger issue of health and safety in our schools. >> of all the issues in our schools, i know budget is a big one but where would you place bullying in terms of crisis of priorities. >> we have a team out here in the audience from law enforcement to school councilors to teachers. it's in the top 5 or 6 areas that we have to really address. if you take budget aside, put that out there as an overwhelming need, it's really, the very top priority is that public safety and bullying is an important set of that number of concerns.

>> have you heard about some really horrible cases of bullying in the schools? have those cases come to you? >> some of them have. of course reading, having the interaction with tom as a legislator, we're good friends and he has spearheaded taking the personal from the families' perspective and his own experiences and targeted it toward legislation. there's far too much of it. part of the training, the law that was passed talks about school personnel reporting but doesn't cover volunteers. how do we reach out to make sure the campus volunteers are also trained? how do we have the victims find a way to be brave enough to report it, that they are being bullied and to talk to some trusted adult about that. >> and see those things don't cost money. one gets very artful, as the former senator knows, when you good out before

appropriations, the committee where everything dies. because there's a price tag, i feel like minnie pearl that i have a little price tag on the bill. we did informal surveys and found a lot of schools had programs. these things are mostly codifying something or alerting the principal and in that way you can deal with the budget monster. and then people -- this is so much on the radar -- you have i guess it's a good thing, you have members who never would have dealt with this competing for who could be the biggest anti-bully person. and that's good. i mean it's healthy. but the other thing is we get all this feedback either through email or, gee, seth's law is not being enforced yet in my district,

what's the story? so then we call up and find out, well, the bill just went into effect 3 days ago or something, but at least there's this back and forth now which i also think is very healthy. so you have the investment of the constituents and they have a focus i haven't seen in a long time around many issues. so we will experience that success and won't have to affect the state economically, but as always when you are in crisis you want it taken care of right then and there. i think we're moving faster than the usual glacial pace in sacramento. >> isn't there a learning curve, now you have the new law in place, you have to get that to the teachers, you have to get that to law enforcement, everybody has to know about it. >> there's quite a few things

in the community that are already happening. if you can bring everyone together, you know, it's almost like with teachers and we used to call it in servicing, a lot of people think you wouldn't want to go to an in service. teachers are always hungry for stuff. i believe in the law enforcement community and the other convenient tues we're talking about, they are already there. they got the itch. with some leadership from the community or a faith organization or a parent i think it will actualize. >> the sunnyvale safety and police department have been really spectacular and have spearheaded this with officer holly lawrence. she has the program, it's in place, we call it train the trainer where we train other police officers to take it back to their counties. it's a spectacular program and is available now. >> so we don't have to wait. >> a good thing about the

digital age is we're going to take some of the best practices, we're going to make it available. you get school officials to think how does this fit into the queue of things i did and should be doing, tlau our web site, focus of expertise and other places, indicate what are those programs that work that help students understand the issue, help the adults, we have 330,000 teachers, as you say, cheryl, how do we get to the 330,000 teachers, the training for this. but with digital sharing of best practices i think we can get there. as rob was mentioning, there are great programs that emerge from often tragedies but they bring the community together. the movie bullying has a couple of those instances aware of and san mateo's respect everyone

24/7 has people looking at how do we respect each other as human beings and understand our differences and embrace those and be a community of care. >> i think a very practical thing, too, is that there somehow be established an adult that kids will trust or young people will trust. when we started out with lgbt sensitivity that was one of the things because a push back from the school district, well, that's going to cost money. but we found teachers, we started with elementary and went up to middle who would volunteer for that, straight or gay. then we put the word out, if you are having these kind of problems, we saw some very graphic instances that even the sensitized adults didn't understand, they didn't realize it. a lot of it in those days, i'm a teacher and i love my

profession, a lot of it was in the faculty rooms, too. you learn from kids. it's all laid out there for you and that's another thing if you have the sensitized adult then you don't spend any money, that adult is there are there. >> we have about 3 minutes left for each of you to make a final comment. mr. neighbors, starting with you. >> just like to share with you, my wife and i are frequently asked, are you against the internet and everything digital. no, there's a lot of good out there. after jill's death i had to take a month off of work, went back to work and the first day back at work my wife calls me, we just got a phone message from a tailor asking we return the phone call. so i called the louisiana number that was left and a little young voice answered the phone. i asked, is this tailor? a

little young voice said, is this robert neighbor? the only person who calls me robert is my mom and this was not my mom. she went on to say she was thinking of committing suicide and she went on you tube and found some videos that some of jill's friend had made about jill. and she thought, if somebody loves jill that much, maybe somebody loves me. i'm always touched by that. >> some day bullying will be something of the past. i also wanted to say we need to work and i see representatives here of cities and counties because those same children are on sports teams under the city rec department, they are receiving services and they are in programs with the county and so having this training, having

this awareness go beyond the schools is really important. so i thought i'd mention that. the other thing that we are moving towards in education is more digital. we'll see less textbooks and more digital learning and with that we are promoting a digital literacy policy which deals with a number of issues and i'm going to go back and look at the draft policy to see how well it deals with the kind of issues rob and your family have dealt with in terms of using the internet safely and being aware of the harm you can do to yourself and to others by the way digital news can get around. >> assemblyman. >> thank you very much. i'm very, very heartened. this was an issue that's been in the closet for too long. i think high profile nationally now as well and we have super stars involved, lady gaga, myself, but you got to reach young

people. usually peers are the best, i think, in terms of communicating things and then absolutely the parents. let's keep working, i'm only as good as the information i have and so we want to do the most effective long-lasting legislation. you know what happens sometimes, something is written in law but the attitudes don't change. so that is the human part, that is the part that should have consequences and not be ignored. otherwise the legislation really isn't doing what it's supposed to do, so thank you all very much. i really give a shout out to san francisco unified because they have been very, very on top of this issue, way ahead of the curve. >> thank you, gentlemen, so much. (applause). >> just a couple of comments. we're not going to take a big official break. if people need

to get up individually, please do so. we have one more panel then we will take a break, a lunch break, lunch will be served at the table and you will have time at that point to chat with people and to take a break. before we move to the next panel, if i could have your attention, please, i just want to acknowledge some of the people in the room today are our law enforcement partners. and some of them have come almost directly from a funeral yesterday of a fallen hero, kenyon youngstrom, of the california hunters point. i want to eepblg the loss of one of our heroes on the california hunters point, kenyon youngstrom, who protect us and keep us safe every day. we acknowledge you and know you are heroes and we are very,

very sorry for the loss of officer youngstrom. our third panel is called prevention and community engagement, promising approaches to stop bullying in the bay area. our moderator is rebecca randell, vice president of education programs at common sense media based here in san francisco. we became ka is responsible for partnering with school districts and departments of education across the country to help children and youth learn how to think critically, behave safely and participate responsibly in our digital world which we all have heard brings its own complications. she oversees the department's education staff, working in the 3 largest districts in the country, new york, denver, maine, texas, florida, and the bay area. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

rebecca randell. >> great, thank you, melinda. i'm going to ask you all to come up now. as they get seated i'll say a few words. all these panelists really bring a great wealth of experience and wisdom to what on the one hand is actually a really complicated issue and on the other hand at its very core is somewhat simple. whether it's online or off-line, bullying and harassment or as the teens that we encounter at common sense media often say, drama, it's about power. as you heard the boy on the video say, i'm the big dog. who has it, who wants it and who wants to keep it. i realize this is an incredibly simple definition so i will leave it to our panel to pick it apart and to delve deeper. each of our panelists will have the opportunity to give a

brief introduction of who they are and their organizations and after we've done the rounds i will pose a series of questions to eefrp of they will and then you will all have the opportunity to interact with them yourselves so we can have a really dynamic conversation. the one thing i will say before introducing our first panelists is we are going to try to keep all these introductions brief so i will give my friendly reminder to the panel, i don't have a buzz button or anything, and i won't really cult you off, but i will try to keep it brief. without further ado, our first panelist is dr. becky cohen vargas who is director of not in our schools san francisco. >> i am actually director of not in our schools which is

part of not in our town. here in the bay area we have one because sometimes we think these things don't happen here, but they do. transgender student killed, gwen arejo, we have a short film. we are a move president and we are about youth taking a move to stop bullying but also intolerance with the statement not in our school, not in our

town. . >> based on the idea that students can lead the way in creating a better school. >> people can do something right and you all have a chance to make a difference in a person's life. >> we're excited about the not in our school web site because it's a wonderful way for teachers and students to come together on issues of empowerment so they can learn from each other. >> if you say the word, that is so gay, is it necessary that you say something about it. >> it is a peer to peer story-sharing site.

>> whenever you are able to take where someone is coming from and gives you a place to find common ground. >> (inaudible). >> young people can see stories and say what can we do, how do we treat each other? then they develop their own innovative way to create change in their school. music, plays, art, mapping. >> 97 freshmen feel there's bullying in the cafeteria. >> i honestly didn't feel we have as much bullying as other students think so that was an opportunity to keep going. >> we are all different in our all different ways. >> you need everybody. >> as we filmed these stories around the country, we've seen the powerful conversations that have surfaced when they have the deeper understanding of what it means not to take

action. >> we can trace racism and prejudice all the way back. we may not be able to make amends for what maybe our an ancestors did, but we can stop some of these things from happening in the future. >> we are becoming empowered. i will make a difference. >> when a community sees its young people stand up to resist intolerance, to resist bullying, they can say why can't we take this to a larger level? they can lead and change an entire community. >> i can be the person that helps the world. >> thanks, becky, and thank you for keeping it short. rick phillips, executive director of community matters. >> on your tables we put a

couple of slides. good morning. the challenge of 3 minutes to speak about programs that are best practices, i probably used up half my time just saying that. let me be clear as the next slide would come up, the problem of bullying is changing, morphing, mutating, younger, meaner, more pervasive as kids have more tools. i want to be clear that the approach that our nation has taken to date is out of the ashes of columbine. we refer to it as an outside approach. what most schools did back then was try to secure a school from ingress, guns coming in and sro's and cameras can stop the guns but they can't stop the kids who bring in other weapons, weapons of bias, weapons of grudges from the neighborhood, values from home. we need to have a different approach. the approach we are talking about is a relational approach. it's an inside out approach, an approach really

based on empowering young people not to be consumers but to be contributors in their own schools, not to be the problems but to be the solutions because clearly we've learned and know that we cannot legislate compassion and we cannot punish our children into being kind. we've tried. we've spent billions of dollars with policies that are punitive, not restoretive, policies that punish but don't give young people the opportunity to correct and to fix the harm. so one of the lessons that our organization, community matters, has done for 12 years has been singularly focused on one mission and that is waking up the courage of our children to stand up and speak up when they see injustice, when they witness intolerance and incivility. and that is the best approach we have because it's a social norms change problem. it's a people problem, it's not a policy problem. waking up the courage of our children is what we've done

through this program, if we can move the slides forward, called safe school ambassadors. basically what we do in my remaining 18 seconds is to go into our public schools and identify alpha social leaders of different cliques believing if we could identify first and enroll the leaders of different kinds of groups we can seed each group with a social change agent, each one teaching one, each one reaching one by modeling the intervention behaviors we teach these young people and here's what we know after 12 years: a thousand public schools in 32 states, more than 500 schools here in california, hundreds here within the bay area, is that the kids who we train and equip to raise their voice then intervene with their friends because with their friends they feel safe. they've got emotional chips in the bank, they have history, and they can model each one teach