W.A. Perry Middle School students take stand against bullying

October is National Bullying Awareness and Prevention Month.

Columbia, S.C. (WOLO) — October is National Bullying Awareness and Prevention Month. In honor of that, W.A. Perry Middle School students took to the Statehouse on Tuesday to spread a message against bullying.

“It makes me very happy to see them taking a position against bullying and other issues, letting their voice be heard,” said Dr. Robin Coletrain, Principal at W.A. Perry Middle School.

Bullying is a problem in many schools across the country.

“We’ve had kids commit suicide. We’ve had adults commit suicide,” said Dr. Coletrain. “We deal with some issues of bullying in the school, we deal with a lot of cyber bullying.”

Three groups of students at the school hope to change that. They’re making it known that they’re fighting against bullying.

“You want people to say something about it, cause you don’t want the situation to go further. Leading to like suicide or something like that,” said Paige DeLaine, 8th grade President at W.A. Perry Middle School.

Students from the Girl Scouts Troop #01962, Boys II Gents Club and Bully Busters Club came together with posters to spread their message.

“We told them to develop their own bullying message. And so it was amazing to see the messages that they came up with on their posters,” said Dr. Coletrain.

“I think I could stop bullying around school, and I think we all can if we all just continue to be leaders and stop being bystanders,” said DeLaine.

Even though October is just about over, the message against bullying is not going anywhere. The posters that the students made will be displayed at the school, to remind them that bullying is not okay.

“Even though October is bullying awareness month, bullying happens all the time. So we want those to be like art in the school,” said Coletrain. “We want to keep this bullying message going on. If you see something, say something, let’s stomp out bullying.”