Teachers sound alarm over cyberbullying

Quebec's teachers are calling on the Charest government to hurry up and release its action plan to help fight cyberbullying, saying it's a growing problem.

The Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ), the province's largest teachers union, unveiled a CROP poll it commissioned showing about 30 per cent of its members surveyed say they knew at least one person in their school who has received threats or been otherwise
harassed over the Internet and that the main victims and instigators were students.

The cyberweapons of choice were mostly emails and chat rooms, the remarks mainly attacking the person's appearance, expressing general criticism or threatening bodily harm.

Teachers polled say schools should do more to raise awareness, set up and enforce anti-violence and anti-harassment policies, hand out appropriate punishment and even call police if necessary, but a majority also responded that they feel schools are powerless to do anything.

Some schools have hired spiritual animators and counsellors to step in and raise awareness and mediate cyber-spats, but they are few and far between and deal with  more students than they can handle. The union says this type of mediation program should be done in all schools but they need funding and resources to back them up.

The union says the Education minister has been promising an action plan for the past seven months. It says if the minister can intervene when it comes to violence in the minor hockey leagues, she can step in to stem this worriesome cyber-phenomenon.