Local schools participate in bullying prevention program.
If I wouldn't have been so scared on the inside, if I had had some tools, I could have defended myself. Although still soft-spoken, McPherson is no longer shy about standing up for herself. In fact, she now works as the sexual assault prevention coordinator for Winfield's Safe Homes, an organization geared toward protecting battered women. As part of her job, McPherson is leading teachers and classrooms in the Kansas Bullying Prevention Program, a state and federally funded program that attempts to prevent sexual harassment and other forms of bullying behavior in schools. The program hopes to prevent tragedies like Columbine, where two teens turned on their fellow students, killing 13 and injuring many others during a shooting spree.