Varsity Lakes Middle School students are learning to “Boot Out Bullying.”

The instruction was part of “Squad Goals” during a Leadership class on held on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Squad Goals is part of a program from the Center for Prevention Abuse and is intended to be a brainstorming session on how to prevent bullying.

The class was held in conjunction with World Kindness Day, held Nov. 13. Many of the Lee County School District schools prepared for the week with lessons incorporated into their regular class time.

According to Candace Colson, a JROTC teacher at Varsity Lakes, peer counseling is part of their everyday JROTC program.

“Today we chose to focus on cyber bullying. We watched a video about a news story that actually took place in our school. One student in the class was bullied during that same incident. She was brave enough to get up in front of the class and share her story,” Colson said. “Her mom lost hours of work and she was emotionally distraught after the incident. The students were blown away that she was a target of bullying.”

According to Colson, Squad Goals is meant to create a space for sharing and discussing the issue of cyber-bullying.

Students first watched a video that showed the effects cyber-bullying can have on someone. How words can be even more powerful than fists.

“It was meant to prove a point that cyber-bullying can be just as detrimental to someone as a physical attack,” Colson said.

Colson then broke the students into groups where they could share personal experiences about either being bullied themselves or witnessing others being bullied.

“Our goal from today is to teach these kids to be up-standers, not by-standers,” Mr. Scheller, a coach and educator at Varsity Lakes said.

One of Colson’s students, eighth grader Waldy Nevelus, shared that he has witnessed cyber-bullying.

“It happens a lot and I think social media plays a big part. For some people, it’s an easier way to target others without doing it face-to-face,” Nevelus said.

Another eighth grader, Jakwon Duncan, said while he has not been bullied himself, he has seen many incidents of students being bullied verbally and through social media.

“I think many times the bully is someone who is struggling with something and then decides to take that anger out on someone else,” Duncan said.

Lee County School’s Food & Nutrition Services also partnered with JonnyPops to add to the lunch menus at all grades on World Kindness Day. In addition to JonnyPops, schools participated in their “Caught Being Kind” campaign, which ran from Nov. 1-13.

During the days leading up to World Kindness Day, “I was Caught Being Kind” Stickers were awarded when students were caught in an act of kindness.