Glen Cove center targets school bullying

Barely a month after she joined the Nassau County Holocaust center, Beth Lilach received a frantic phone call from a local elementary school principal: bullying at the school, he said, was out of control.

Kindergartners were teasing an overweight classmate, and nothing the principal or teacher did to try to stop it seemed to work, recalled Lilach, an education director at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.

Four years later, the Glen Cove center is launching a full-fledged program aimed at students in elementary schools, where, Lilach says, bullying -- previously prevalent in middle and high schools -- is now commonplace.

"We have received so many phone calls" about bullying at the elementary level, she said. "There is such demand" for a program to address the issue.

Thursday, the program had something of a dry run when a group of fourth- and fifth-graders from the Glen Head Elementary School visited, shared stories about bullying, and talked of how to combat it.

Caroline Reiner, 10, a fourth-grader, said she has helped teach second-graders at the school about anti-bullying techniques after she herself was bullied as a second-grader. She has started a group at the school called "Be Aware, Show You Care, Stand Up to Bullying Everywhere."

Another fourth-grader, Dora Capobianco, 9, recalled how the school earlier this year put out a call for students to wear pink one day to show solidarity with a high school student in Canada who was bullied after he wore a pink shirt to school. Capobianco said the vast majority of students at her school wore pink.

Lilach said bullying is increasing in American society for a variety of reasons: there's a lot of it on television, including "reality shows," and in the movies. "There is so much of this on TV that it is acceptable, it becomes internalized," she said. "The reality shows are off the charts."

The Internet and social networking have also helped intensify bullying, she said. "More victims are being exposed to even more people," she said. "For the victims, the humiliation is being magnified to the nth degree."

The center's new program, scheduled to kick off in September, will help elementary school students learn how to respond to bullying and show solidarity with victims.