Bullying needs to be addressed

I’m a sophomore at Everett High School. My purpose for writing is to tell people about the effect of bullying on me and people around me. I’ve been physically and verbally bullied at this school for the two years I’ve been attending. People would tell me that I’m ugly and that I wasn’t worth anything to anyone. I would spend countless nights crying myself to sleep and hiding my feelings from my family and my friends thinking I was stronger … but deep down I knew I wasn’t.

I remember during a passing period at school, this girl I didn’t even know shoved me against a locker and a teacher saw the whole thing but said nothing about it. I fought back tears and was silent the rest of the day, yet I told my friends I was totally fine. My school and many others have taken their bullying problems and “swept them under the rug,” which has resulted in one dropout and two suicides just in the past year as far as I know. Bullying impacts so many people and I believe that the school should do something to help those who feel like there’s no way out of their situation instead of pretending that nothing is happening.

No one deserves to get bullied. We all deserve to be respected at the very least; but most of all, we deserve to feel safe mentally and physically at school. How many more kids like me have to suffer under the weight of bullying before the school realizes that change is needed?

Becca Johnston

Everett

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