The bespectacled, overweight teen had been teased and abused by his classmates since elementary school. They are trapped. Bullying interferes with education, experts agree. Being bullied can cause victims' grades to suffer and may lead to chronic absenteeism and truancy. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, some 160,000 children stay home from school every day because they are afraid of being bullied.
Bullying also raises liability concerns.
For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that classmates may hold school systems liable if educators ignore student complaints of sexual harassment. Bullying behavior starts in elementary school and peaks in middle school. It attracts more attention from adults in high school, where students are physically larger and bullying sometimes takes the form of sexual harassment. Kids are practicing the behavior at an early age. The Illinois study found that 75 percent of students classified as bullies said they themselves had been victims of peer harassment.