Oct. 25, 2007

Students, teachers and advisors from Central Iowa schools will come together to help prevent bullying during a conference at Simpson College Oct. 25.

 “Think. Build. Act.” is the first conference in the nation where secondary-level students from multiple schools and school districts will come together to learn ways to battle bullying.

The conference will consist of topic sessions for students and adults, breakout discussions, and panel discussions by victims, advocates and possible bullies.

Breakout sessions include:

• Ways to deal with and help prevent verbal and physical bullying
• Ways to deal with and help prevent bullying based on sex or gender-orientation
• Ways to deal with and help prevent cyber-bullying
• Effects of bullying from the view of actual students
• Whole-school, coordinated approaches to reduce bullying and help both victims and perpetrators
• Concepts of restorative justice and how they can be brought to bear on this problem

Iowa Governor Chet Culver will speak to the group briefly during lunch. After lunch, students and their advisors will work in groups to create action plans against bullying based on what they learned during the conference.

The conference is sponsored by the Simpson College social science and education division and area schools.