Carson City schools participate in statewide anti-bullying campaigns

Although Nevada’s anti-bullying campaign is heavily promoted for one week, schools in Carson City are ensuring students support kindness as a lifelong commitment.

Gov. Brian Sandoval’s “Week of Respect” took place Oct. 3-7 statewide with activities to engage and educate students the importance of safe and respectful learning environments and online.

Throughout the week, students wrote their pledges of kindness on strips of paper to be hung in school hallways and wore blue on Friday for National Anti-Bullying Day.

Empire, Fremont, Fritsch, and Mark Twain elementary schools participated in week long activities and stapled together pledge strips into a chain for fifth grade students to place inside of the school.

Carson Middle School and Carson High School also participated in the campaign with its own events, specifically aimed to target particular age groups.

“Watching our students and staff truly embrace the essence of ‘respect’ has been very inspiring,” said Tasha Fuson, Carson High School principal. “We all need to be reminded once in a while to look outside ourselves and be mindful of how our actions impact others around us. I believe our school community has proven that social and emotional learning really works.”

At Fritsch elementary, the paper chain of student pledges turned into a 110-foot long bond, and posed in the field to spell out the word “Respect” as a photoshoot from Nevada Magazine’s drone.

All grades and support staff represented a letter on the field.

Principal Dan Brown said this is the third year Fritsch is promoting the campaign but it’s also the first year to host active events, such as the drone photoshoot.

With that, the campaign has already made a positive impact on students, he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of students helping each other on and off school grounds,” he said. “We’re hanging the chain up in the lunchroom as a reminder for students that we are a bully-free school.”

The hands-on activities were methods to improve the school environment and help students understand when to report an incident.