Students at East Syracuse Minoa Central High School recently participated in a new cyberbullying peer-to-peer prevention program designed to help educate them, teachers and school administrators on the growing cyberbullying epidemic and to provide workshops, tools and resources to combat it.
The Siena Upstander Program, created by AT&T, the Tyler Clementi Foundation and Siena College, grows out of the Upstate Cyberbullying Census survey conducted in late 2016 that measured the prevalence of cyberbullying among students, the awareness of this crisis among parents and parents’ understanding of their children’s digital behaviors in New York.
The data from the study revealed one in four students in Upstate New York and 31 percent in Central New York have been a victim of cyberbullying. Those statistics, combined with feedback from schools requesting cyberbullying prevention programming, led AT&T, the Tyler Clementi Foundation and the Siena to collaborate on this public education campaign.
The objective of the program is to create an Upstander culture within East Syracuse Minoa Central High School, and other schools where the program is presented. Upstander is a popular phrase used in the anti-bullying space, and also used by AT&T and the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which encourages students to not simply be a bystander when they witness cyberbullying but, rather, to speak up, notify an adult and/or interrupt the negative behavior. Students were asked to take the Upstander pledge and promote it throughout the community.
The program pairs Siena College students who have been trained as cyberbullying ambassador facilitators with high school students for peer-to-peer conversations, role playing exercises and workshops.
“Our students need to be free from worrying about bullying — period — whether it’s cyber, face-to-face, or some other method. Students need to know all staff care and want to know how we as adults can get rid of bullying stressors. We have trusted adults here at ESM Central High School. The addition of trusted students from this cyber-bullying partnership will be part of the solution and can only enhance our educational environment,” said ES-M Executive Principal Grenardo L. Avellino.
The program at East Syracuse Minoa Central HighSchool consisted of Siena students working with 20 selected student leaders for the first part of the school day in a workshop on how to be Upstander Ambassadors. At the end of the day, the Siena facilitators and the newly trained high school Upstander Ambassadors conducted a school-wide assembly program to share best practices, build awareness of the danger of cyberbullying and promote the Upstander behavior and culture.
“The impact of cyberbullying on our youth has become pervasive and alarming. We simply can’t allow this crisis to destroy more lives and families,” said Marissa Shorenstein, president, AT&T-Northeast Region. “In efforts to curb this negative behavior, AT&T has collaborated with leading organizations within the cyberbullying space to develop programs, including the AT&T and Siena Upstander Program, to give parents, educators and students the tools to combat this epidemic and help facilitate a dialogue that will to lead positive change in our communities.”
The program is being offered free to high schools across the state through supporting organizations.
“We are thrilled to work alongside AT&T and the Tyler Clementi Foundation to empower high school students to share their stories, connect with Siena students on a peer to peer level, and become leaders of the Upstander movement in their schools and communities,” said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute. “This program is at the heart of Siena’s mission as a Franciscan college and we are committed to assisting high school students, their parents, and schools to move from being victims and bystanders of cyberbullying to being Upstanders and ambassadors in combating this pervasive issue.”
