Gwenyth Stuard, a Bethel Middle School seventh-grader, came up with a way to raise money for education about bullying so children and teachers learn how to stop it.

Down the road at Ridgefield High School, senior Chris Bedell self-published a book called "The Outsider" that he hopes provokes discussions about issues that face teenagers, including bullying.

His classmate, Sophie Needleman, started a website and campaign to stop cyber bullying at the school in response to a homophobic tweet.

The students are taking a stand against bullies.  

Scott Snow, a social worker for the Region 12 school district, said the best response to bullies is to teach students to move from being bystanders to being allies for the students who are targeted.

"There can't be so many perpetrators if the bystanders become allies," Snow said during a parent workshop Wednesday in Danbury. "We have to teach kids to step up and be allies."

Twelve-year-old Stuard created two stick figures and had them imprinted on rubber bracelets that she sold in local stores and at school.

"It was to raise money for the school to help train people to work with kids about bullying," she said.

The people who wear the bracelets show they will be intolerant of bullying behavior, she said.

"I've witnessed a fair amount of bullying," Stuard said. "I really care about my friends, and I wanted to do something about it. I heard that 160,000 (U.S.) kids don't go to school because of bullying. I don't want them to be scared of school."

She encouraged students to sign a banner pledging to stand up against bullying.

"School is where it happens, but with kids helping, it's going to be really hard for kids to keep bullying," she said.

Seventeen-year-old Bedell took a different approach on bullying, just one of the topics he wanted to air in his book, which is available on Amazon.com as an ebook.

Bedell created Charlie Donovan, a Manhattan private school student, who was a lonely outsider until a life-changing party invitation introduced him to the popular world and a popular girl.

"The ultimate goal is to start a conversation," Bedell said. "If I can get people talking about it, then I will have done a good job. I will give people hope and have them see that high school is not the be all and end all."

School bullying takes many forms, and it is done by both girls and boys. In a recent U.S. study, 17 percent of all students reported having been bullied "sometimes" or more often, which amounts to almost one in five, according to www.violencepreventionworks.org.

According to the National Crime Prevention website, 52 percent of students report seeing bullying at least once a week.

Students are keeping up the pressure to change the culture in schools and to empower kids to lessen the effects of bullies.

Bullies may think it makes them popular or in charge or gets them attention. Or they may be bullied at home. So we owe it to them, as well as their targets, to teach students to make bullying intolerable.

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