Bullying

I'm the mother of a middle school boy. Frankly, he's dealt with bullying pretty much all of his life. We put him in kung fu training to make him more assertive and it's helped some.

But now that he's in middle school, it seems like the bullying is more of a concern because these kids are big enough to actually hurt each other now.

We met with school officials recently and got some good information about documenting incidents and responding to them. But I am still just worried.

With all the gang stuff in the news lately, my son has said he's afraid to stand up for himself for fear of gang reprisals. We're working through that.

I will say for the past several years, he's been very disillusioned with the city schools on the anti-bullying policy. He thinks it's all talk. The buses in particular seem to be no man's land. My son even broke up what he called a mugging on the bus last week. One student was trying to steal and forcefully take $20 from another student. Finally the bus driver figured out what was going on and stopped the bus.

My questions are: Do we need marshals on the bus? Teacher assistants, or what have you.

What is your experience with bullying at Asheville Middle School? How proactive do you think teachers and administrators are? It seems like they are well intentioned but overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of students vs. adults. Any thoughts or suggestions out there?