- November 18, 2024
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Bullying used to be easy to identify. The big kid strolls down the hallway, demands milk money from the small kid, and then shoves him in a locker. And he does it every day. That would clearly fit the three criteria of bullying in Flagler Schools: repeated, malicious, imbalance of power.
But what if instead of the hallway, this happens on Twitter? And what if instead of the jock physically shoving the nerd in a locker, he simply posts a rude picture? And what if, instead of repeating this action day after day, he only does it once, but lots of kids show their approval by clicking the “favorite” button on their own Twitter accounts?
A cyber scenario just like this occurred toward the end of the school year, in May, and, in the minds of the victims, it raised questions about Flagler Schools’ policies on bullying and Twitter.
The tweet
It all started when a member of the senior class, with just weeks left in his career at Matanzas, took a picture of a student government campaign sign on campus and posted it on Twitter (on school grounds and during school hours) with this message: “What I’ll miss least about high school.”
Stefano Schibeci, who just completed his junior year as student body president, considered himself the target. His brother, Angelo, who is younger by 10 months and also was a junior, served as Stefano’s vice president last year. The tweet depicted one of the signs they displayed in their campaign to be re-elected for their senior year, and it clearly showed their last name.
The day of the tweet, they were also working on another school project involving a popcorn machine, and their mother, Tracy, stopped by to deliver supplies. The boys told their mother about the tweet, and she considered it the last straw. They had complained to her in the past about administrators giving them unprofessional nicknames and teasing them. They had told her many instances of one administrator giving them permission to do something, and then getting in trouble from a different administrator because of a lack of communication. So, while Tracy was on campus, she contacted the dean, Bob Sawyer.
Sawyer listened to her complaints and was concerned.
“She said her sons were being harassed, and she was sick of all the harassment,” he recalled later in a phone interview. “It was all surprising to me. They’re true leaders on our campus, so for me to hear that they’re being harassed, I said, ‘What’s going on?’”
Sawyer immediately went to find Stefano and Angelo, and he asked to see the tweet: “What I’ll miss least about high school.” Based on what he had been told just minutes earlier, Sawyer said, “I was expecting to see a whole lot more than that.” He said of the Schibeci brothers: “They are very good guys, they do a ton of stuff on our campus, are involved in a lot of different things. And I don’t like to see anybody’s feelings hurt. But if you look at the definition of bullying, I wouldn’t say this comes even close to meeting this criteria.”
Still, Sawyer tracked down the student who tweeted the photo and asked him to delete it. “I tried,” Sawyer said. “But I don’t have the power to do that. I said, ‘You’re causing some discomfort to these guys. Get it off there.’ He didn’t respond.”
In Sawyer’s mind, the unfortunate incident was resolved. “It’s not against the law. Not every kid likes every other kid, but it doesn’t make them a bully because they don’t like you,” he said. “There’s a lot of fine lines that you walk with this stuff, believe me.”
The favorites
But it wasn’t just the tweet that was upsetting. In response to the photo, other students replied with explicit language and epithets directed at the Schibecis. That made it feel malicious. It also felt like an imbalance of power because they had no ability to remove the tweet or defend themselves in a meaningful way. On top of that, by the time Stefano saw the tweet, it had been favorited 17 times, which in his view was a lot for a tweet at Matanzas High School. And that made it feel “repeated,” which means, in the Schibecis’ eyes, it fit all three criteria for bullying.
“The favorites worsen the impact because it adds to the frustration and anxiety of seeing those individuals in the hallways at school because you know they favorited a hateful tweet,” Stefano Schibeci wrote via email. “It has the same impact, if not more of an impact, as being ganged up on in school, surrounded by 17 people that hate you and ‘favorite’ things that can destroy your own confidence. It should never be taken faintly.”
Sawyer said later that he didn’t know about the aftermath of the tweet. “They never pointed out the favorites to me,” he said.
But the tweet also was the beginning of even more troubling harassment, they said. Since then, people have been driving by their home and shouting epithets at them. Someone egged their car. They started to feel concerned for their safety when they attended school events.
Again, that was news to Sawyer. District policy is to direct students to contact law enforcement in situations like that, away from campus. Incidents should be reported with specific times and places so that the perceived bullying can be documented, he said.
The Schibecis lost the election and won’t be serving on student government next year. Moreover, the tweet is still there in cyberspace, for all the school to see.
And so, the two brothers came to the Palm Coast Observer office at the end of the school year to tell their story and to raise awareness of cyberbullying and what they perceive as an inadequate response from school administration.
Stefano Schibeci has short, dark hair and a quiet confidence. Angelo has long, curly blond hair and a fiery sense of justice. They have a good support system of family and friends, but they also are concerned about bullying against other kids who might not have such a strong support system. How would they react if they perceived they were being bullied?
Tracy Schibeci believes the school should have done more. “Most people are going to say, ‘You’re going to have that in your lifetime. It’s in the workforce, it’s in politics.’ But (these) guys are still kids. This is where you’re supposed to be grown and protected and encouraged.” She said the schools’ policy against bullying is “a bunch of fluff.”
The future
Considering Facebook and Instagram are already outlawed on school campuses, blocking Twitter as well would be a logical move to curtail cyber misconduct, according to Stefano Schibeci.
“I've never seen anything good Twitter has brought to Matanzas High School, only up-scaled drama and dirty gossip,” he wrote via email. “Twitter has had an ominous effect on Matanzas High School, and it is only going to get worse.”
“Twitter is a place of ‘venting,’” he continued. “If you want to say something to someone indirectly, go post it on Twitter.”
Regardless of the district policy about Twitter, though, he said that if an instance of a tweet like that being favorited 17 times is essentially ignored, Principal Dr. Chris Pryor and Matanzas are not fulfilling the words of the district’s bullying policy — or the school’s motto: “Make good choices. Hold yourself accountable. Strive for excellence.”
Pryor said in a phone interview that he wasn’t aware of the details of the Schibecis’ story. But, he said, “If someone felt they were being bulled or harassed, if there was any merit to it, we would do what we could to stop it. If it fell outside of our purview, and it was under the law, we would turn it over to law enforcement.”
He noted that the criterion of “repeated” is a key factor. “It can’t be one incident,” he said. “A lot of people will say, ‘My child is being bullied. They called him a name.’ How many times? ‘Just once.’ Well, that’s not being bullied.”
Pryor doesn’t think it would be effective to block Twitter, either, because students will only find other methods.
“If we didn’t have electronic ways of bullying, we would still have bullying going on,” he said. “As incidents occur, we do what we can to help the kids.”
Still, Stefano Schibeci feels let down. “I see on the news that these kids kill themselves, and it’s because they had no one to talk to, and I understand why now,” he said. “If it’s happening in our school that nothing gets done about it, I’m sure it’s happening all over the country.”
SIDEBAR: Bullied? Or not bullied?
The Flagler Schools policy states that each student is entitled a safe, secure environment, free from bullying of any kind. And procedures to document bullying are strict and involved.
Katrina Townsend, student services director for Flagler Schools, would not comment on the particular incident with the Schibecis, but she did explain the process.
“When we have an issue that is reported, the first thing we have to determine is whether it falls within our purview,” she said. “We might look at it and say, ‘That doesn’t seem very nice,’ but we don’t have jurisdiction to discipline in every case.”
But, even if something is not classified as bullying, it could be classified as misconduct worthy of discipline.
“Someone comes and hits you on a one-time occasion, it might not be bullying, but it’s still a nonmutual fight,” she said.
When bullying is reported, district policy requires that staff question the two parties and complete a checklist to determine whether it is bullying and what the consequences or interventions might be. But those documents are never made public because the identities of the parties are kept confidential, particularly when mental health intervention is recommended. In fact, the victim might never know whether the bully was disciplined at all.
Speaking in general terms, Townsend said that the district has investigated cyberbullying cases in the past and disciplined students who have liked a malicious Facebook post or favorited a particularly harmful tweet. But if a student hits “favorite” one time, it’s not repeated, and therefore, the student can only be disciplined for misconduct, not bullying.
The victim still could be ruled a victim of bullying, however, and be eligible for mental health services, change of classroom or school, creation of a safety plan, etc.
SIDEBAR: Why is Twitter allowed on campus?
Superintendent Jacob Oliva confirmed that Facebook and Instagram are both blocked on Flagler Schools WiFi and have been for years. Twitter has grown in popularity since then, and yet it remains unblocked.
But he doesn’t believe the solution to cyberbullying is to block each new social media platform as it pops up. That would be impossible to keep up with, he said.
Instead of being reactive, he said, the schools should be proactive and teach the students how to be good online citizens. They should take advantage of social media as tools for education.
“Over the next couple of years, we could have a time when social media is not blocked,” Oliva said.
Some might argue that cell phones should be outlawed altogether, but Student Services Director Katrina Townsend said they’re too valuable for safety reasons, especially in the event of an active shooter. In fact, the policy to allow cell phones is referred to as the “Columbine Policy,” after the school shooting in 1999, in Colorado.
But whereas Oliva could see a time when social media are more acceptable, Townsend indicated the policy could end up going the other way, with Twitter being blocked, in addition to Facebook and Instagram.
“Unfortunately, with the amount of issues we’re seeing on Twitter, this would be our next thing that we would look at,” she said. “And we are meeting with discipline teams to see the types of things to look at for policies for next year. Twitter will be on our list.”
