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State Sen. Joe Schiavoni speaks to Lowellville students about bullying
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
LOWELLVILLE
Though it’s been more than 20 years, state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, hasn’t forgotten about the student who transferred schools after his freshman year.
This student had a different personality than most players on the school’s football team, and was smaller than them, too. Teasing in the locker room soon gave way to full-force bullying and harassment, with students rampantly making up things about him.
Schiavoni was in his early teens then, a freshman at Boardman High School.
“I didn’t pick on him, but I didn’t necessarily stand up for him either,” said Schiavoni, addressing a group of sixth- through 12th-graders at Lowellville K-12 School on Thursday afternoon.
Schiavoni continued, explaining that years later, after he’d become a state senator, he received a five-page, handwritten letter from this student.
In the letter, the student — now an adult — explained that he still felt as though his life was worthless, despite the passage of two decades since the bullying incidents. He also told Schiavoni that he’d tried to contact one of his former bullies — and that he’d repeatedly threatened his life, until police were forced to intervene.
Now, the man relayed to Schiavoni, he was virtually locked up in a mental-health center because he was deemed a threat to others and to himself. He also had a criminal record, as well as a history of drug abuse.
“Bullying changed his life for the negative, forever. It’s a horrible story, but it’s a real story,” Schiavoni said. “I want you to understand that something very small to you could be huge to someone else.”
Schiavoni added that he wanted to make a difference in the lives of students being bullied, and noted that bullying today often doesn’t end with the dismissal bell.
Now, sometimes bullying is constant, having changed significantly because of technologies such as the Internet and cellphones, he said.
He then mentioned House Bill 116, or the Jessica Logan Act, which he worked to put together to help school districts and their students better deal with cyberbullying issues. Signed into law in February 2012 by Gov. John Kasich, it requires the state’s school districts to establish cyberbullying policies, and also to inform teachers and parents about those policies.
The act, Schiavoni added, is named after a Cincinnati teenager who committed suicide in 2008 after being bullied and harassed by her classmates about nude photos she’d sent to a former boyfriend.
The photos, sent via cellphone, were shared without her permission.
“When you do something on the Internet, or you send a text, that’s forever. Make sure you are paying attention,” Schiavoni said. “It ate her alive. You don’t know how somebody’s going to react, because you’re not them.”
After his presentation, Schiavoni asked students whether they thought bullying was a problem in their school and also what could be done to address the problem. He left time for questions, too.
Jon Chiclowe, a freshman at Lowellville High School, said he appreciated Schiavoni’s willingness to start a discussion with students.
“He asked questions,” Chiclowe said. “He didn’t talk the whole time, and he asked us what we thought.”
Likewise, Gina Kostelnak, a sophomore, said she found the state senator’s presentation informative, and liked that he spent time talking about ways bullying could be minimized in their school.
“He opened some eyes,” Kostelnak said. “It was definitely helpful for anyone going through bullying.”