Bullying Prevention Month at 30th Street
Written by: Grace Solomita, Guidance and Transition Coordinator
Schools around the country celebrate National Bullying Prevention Month in October every year. The related service team at 30th street worked to put together a month of engaging and meaningful events related to bullying prevention. We started off the Month by hanging post-its and posters that convey messages of positivity around the school. In some locations, posters were hung side by side with the same poster in Spanish for an immersive learning experience and a cross-curricular connection to Hispanic Heritage Month. To start off the month, students learned about bullying prevention events that would take place throughout October. Teachers presented a slideshow to the students explaining what they had to look forward to and what to expect throughout the month.
Each of the 4 weeks of the month had a different theme. Week 1 focused on kindness, week 2’s theme was acceptance, week 3 concentrated on inclusion, and we wrapped up with the topic of unity in week 4. Each week, as part of the Thinking Maps curriculum roll out, students discussed the weekly bullying prevention theme while creating Thinking Maps. As a follow up to one of these lessons, students wrote their own positive post-it notes and hung them up in our hallways.
Students enrolled in art class this semester took part in a week-long unit about poster making. They used these skills to compete in the bullying prevention poster competition. All of the submissions we received were excellent!
We concluded Bullying Prevention Month with the overarching theme of unity. In addition to the unity themed Thinking Maps lesson, students and staff dressed in orange, the color of unity, on Unity Day, which fell on October 20th this year. Orange masks were distributed so that every member of the Aaron School community could be included in this exciting day. The final way that the Aaron School community demonstrated our unity was by signing a huge banner that says, “Unified Against Bullying”. We proudly have it displayed in our hallway and are already looking forward to next year’s Bullying Prevention Month events!
