SAN ANTONIO – A third grade student along with community leaders and musical artists hosted an anti-bully rally Thursday at The Gathering Place school.
“Be a buddy, not a bully,” eight-year-old third grade student Arion King said. She was inspired to host the rally to raise awareness with the hopes to promote a bully-free campus.
“I should be a buddy and not a bully. I should stick up for my friends and stick up for myself when I’m getting bullied. I should have self love, that’s what I think they are taking away from this,” King explained.
The Gathering Place Principal, Jay Jackson-Carter, says throughout the school year students practiced re-building better emotional and social skills after a lack of interaction during the COVID-19 lockdown period.
“We have different expectations than they do at home. So what we were seeing was very natural consequences of the pandemic of lockdown,” Jackson-Carter said.
As school districts nationwide work on ending bullying while re-building healthy engagement skills for children at schools, principal Jay Jackson-Carter says hosting this rally today is the perfect way to wrap up the school year.
“Going into next school year [we’ll be] starting the year with all of those practices and effective communication,” Jackson-Carter said.