theOctagon
Sacramento Country Day School
www.scdsoctagon.com
VOL. XXXIX, NO. 4
Different name, same game
January 12, 2016
Q & A: Pat Reynolds
Social media apps make bullying easy for sophomores By Zoë Bowlus Online Editor-in-Chief
E
very year in August, high schoolers supposedly read the student handbook from front to back. They even sign
read it and will adhere to all the pol icies therein. Those policies include using “appro ! priate language, manners and ethics” ( ' $ when accessing technology as SCDS rep resentatives. “Students should not use email, instant mes sage, blogs, or any other form of social media to hurt others in the SCDS community,” the handbook states. The handbook also states that students are responsible for how they represent themselves and SCDS on the Internet. Students are to contact a school em ployee “if they encounter any security problems, abuses, or misuse of technology resources.” Brooke Wells, head of high school, said if the use of technology violates any of Country
interest is to keep it anonymous.” Wells said that cyberbullying consequences are an educational issue.
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Wells also said students need training so that sites like After School can be used correctly. “We have to teach them,” he said, “and give them the language and $ & ' $ m$ *e% # understanding. When is it time to e# a& & # A% * *# *m stand up for themselves? You could just hope that people understand that.” Enter Pat Reynolds. The newly hired counselor has 37 years of indepen
Houston, as the Upper School coun selor.
ness program schoolwide.” freshmen and sophomores have a “skills class” during their free period. Wells said the classes will present ways to ap proach educational and peer issues. Topics include
same as if it had been physical. Day kid negatively,” he said, “it becomes an issue of the handbook violation.” Presumably, the ground rules re ! e*ce* " # $ *# % $ & volving around social media are clear. But what happens when social me u% e) # " ' e# a& dia bullying occurs on an anonymous app, like AfterSchool, which was launched in 2014? On its site, AfterSchool is described as “an anonymous and private message board for your school...” “a place where you can post freely with anonymity. Now and always.”
to get help if a student is feeling in
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therapist address the situation,” he said. to assess the students in order to identi fy why they are stressed and what they need and build a program around that.
A student creates an account that must be linked to his or her Facebook
Then users can write posts, which can school administrators or parents. After be revealed. According to the Frequently Asked Questions “anything that they think their school would enjoy. Keep it fun. Keep it safe.” Moreover AfterSchool cautions users not to post anything hurtful. According to sophomore Lily Brown, at the start students were posting about the at tractiveness of other students. “I was on the app because my friends had told me about it,” she said. “It seemed like it was a harmless, funny thing. “But then some of them became kind of inappropriate. There was one that was target ing me.” An embarrassing picture with a mean cap tion was posted. “That made me really uncomfortable,” classmate would say what they did about her. So Brown spoke with Patricia Jacobsen,
missing in terms of the counseling program.”
thing.” “I want to get a feel for what stu dents need to know,” Reynolds said, know that they might not be aware of.” Reynolds also plans on “creating an awareness of the good and the bad and present tools so that a student begins to Statistics taken from a poll distributed Jan. 4 to 36 sophomores.
Social media is “a great communicating tool,” she said. “But, she added, “the trouble comes when people forget about the safety idea. fortunately we have to have rules for safety.” Reynolds maintains that the rules ar “The majority of the things that hap pen online that are negative are unin tentional and not deliberate,” she said. like to think that everyone is trying to do the right thing but they get caught up in the moment. “In the skills class, we talk a lot about building community and being inclusive in everything you do.”
New high-school counselor Pat Reynolds is the new high-school counselor. For the past 16 years, she was the Upper School counselor at St. John’s School in Houston. Reynolds attended James Madison University for her undergraduate studies. “It was kind of a quadruple major: middle-school science, health, PE. And back in the day, I actually taught driver’s education,” she said. She received a master’s degree in education in counseling education from Cleveland State University. Reynolds has 37 years of experience in independent schools. A: I worked for the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles every summer while I was in college. I looked up people’s driving records and sent them to attorneys. (I worked) behind the scenes. I was a carrier pigeon from one department to another. Q: How did you get interested in education and A: I admired all of my teachers in high school. I’m a lifelong learner of whatever there is to be absorbed. I kind of liked the in-front-of-the-classroom aspect of being a teacher, like the “Can I get the attention of folks and hold them until the ‘aha’ moment occurs and grab that moment and get the most out (it)?” It’s like a live audience. I felt like I kind of was natural at (teaching). I love research; I love creating new projects; I love problem-solving projects. A: By chance someone I played softball with knew someone who knew of a school in Martinsville, Virginia (Carlisle School). They were looking for a sixth-grade science teacher. I drove down there and interviewed
A: The Andrews School in Ohio. It was a boarding school. I taught middle-school science there and was in charge of six dorms. Q: You’ve hiked in Alaska, the Tetons, the Grand Canyon A: I think the Grand Canyon because the hike was from the south end to the north end. I never thought it was something I could backpack. It’s steep uphill; it’s steep downhill. At the end it was really cool to catch up with the people and take pictures. Many people camped the night before they started their hike from the South Rim. Then most people stay at least one night at the bottom, so there is socializing there. Folks hung around the parking lot and took pictures and told stories at the end.
another race. A: Once you turn 50, you can participate in the Senior Olympics. I played on a senior basketball team in Houston, but have not yet found a basketball team here in Sacramento. So I decided to try and qualify for either the 20K or the 40K cycling road race. I will likely need to go to Napa or Pasadena to qualify for the National Senior Olympics, as I haven’t been able Right now it’s kind of chilly to ride. I’m riding indoors.
See Apps, page 2
about the app,” Brown said. “And then I told them what had been posted about me. I think that made them really alert to what things were being posted.” In the wake of this incident and others, Wells contacted the AfterSchool owner. Country Day has since been cleared from the server, and SCDS accounts can no longer be created. But Wells knows that blocking access to this
A: Right now, I’m watching season 2 of “Broadchurch.” It’s in the UK, and it’s a detective murder thing. I’m a “Transparent” fan. I’m a “Parenthood” fan. “Sopranos.” “The Wire.” “House of Cards,” love it. “Game of Thrones,” love it. “Walking Dead,” love it. “Mad Men.” The new one, “Master of None.” Most of my TV watching is streaming once it’s already come out. A: I was a cat girl for a long time. And then Alice (my
See Q&A, page 2