Town of Webb computer technology and English teacher Megan Pfeifer has been working nearly three weeks with her eighth-graders in preparing for national “Stomp-out Bullying Day” on Monday, October 5th.
“Students were encouraged to wear blue shirts in recognition of [the day],” she said.
“I wanted—especially with the sad events that have occurred here over the past year—to let the kids see the weaknesses socially [in the school] and to take charge of it,” she said.
Pfeifer’s eighth grade computer class ran the school-wide campaign to get students, faculty and staff to participate.
“They had to use the technology that is readily and available to them. They had to think outside the box,” she said.
Based on the number of students that wore blue, the students were able to see how successful their campaigning was, she said.
The students were broken into different groups.
Some wrote speeches about bullying that were delivered to students in various classrooms.
Other groups wrote a segment for a student to deliver with the announcements from the school’s main office.
They wrote emails and also designed a webpage from scratch, Pfeifer said.
All students created posters digitally with google drive.
The posters that were voted best were hung up around the school, according to Pfeifer.
To get a better idea on the success of the day, the students also went around and asking for signatures from fellow students, teachers and anyone that was planning to wear blue on that day.
The final step was to send out an email blast on Sunday, October 4th to remind all students in grades six through twelve, faculty and staff in the school to wear blue the following day.
“We had a pretty good turn out. I think they were more successful this year than last year; they kind of made it their own thing,” Pfeifer said.
“They were passionate about their work and they were conscientious about what to say and careful how they were getting their messages out. I was really proud of them, seeing them working together and giving each other ideas—splitting up for different small jobs. It was just really good to see them do that,” she said.
Pfeifer said she estimated that 70 percent of the school took part in the day.
For more information on the day, or to see the finished website designed by the students, visit https://sites.google.com
/a/towschool.org/stop-bullyingnow/