This Friday, Dec. 4 an assembly will be held to highlight the new anti-bully law, David’s Law. which is a Texas Law that changed education code and made online bullying a class A or B misdemeanor. According to Mrs. Laura Mercado, school counselor, any student at the age of 17 that is found guilty of online bullying has this violation on their permanent record and will no longer be able to apply for military or government jobs.

“This is a big deal. It can be any form even if you send a mean text or you’re in a group chat and there is something being said to pick on somebody else, facebook postings, any kind of photoshopping you do, or name calling. If it causes distress to that other person you’re under violation of David’s law,” Mrs. Mercado said.

David’s Law was created to bring justice to a teenage boy named David, who, after being bullied on social media, eventually took his own life. This law applies to situations that occur or are delivered on school property or on the site of a school sponsored event. It can also be applied to any publicly or privately owned school bus that bullying takes place and any cyberbullying on or off school property.

“This is not something to be joked at. A lot of people feel brave hiding behind a screen, but if you can’t say it to somebody in person, then you should really think twice about putting it up on social media because once its out, it’s out and you can’t take it back,” Mrs. Mercado said.

In order to bring awareness and inform students and teachers on the consequences and new school codes that Davids Law brings, the counselors put together a different kind of assembly. In the assembly, students will have the opportunity to see a video made by the councillors, a skit presented by the theatre students and Mr. Jacob Rodriguez, and a testimony. students will also be encouraged to sign a pledge to stop cyber bullying and prevent bullying in general.

“Learning how to use social media and technology appropriately can actually help young people. Suicide is the second leading cause of young people the first is homicide, so if you look at it young people are either killing themselves or killing each other and a lot of it comes from the social media push,” Mrs. Mercado said.

Under David’s Law, even bystanders can face consequences. Bullying isn’t just a person being harmful towards others, people who stand by and let bullying happen, through social media or face to face, can make the situation worse by not reporting it to a person that can help.

“I think that if people aren’t made aware of the law it can definitely have bad repercussions for people who think that maybe they’re not necessarily bullying but just kind of bystanders or just bullying a little bit but they don’t see it as a really severe thing,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

According to Mr. Rodriguez, with David’s Law, many people are going to be held accountable for their actions. Mr. Rodriguez said this law is a necessity with the digital age, with new technology it is getting more and more easier for people to get away with situations like these.

“For too long internet ‘trolls’ have gotten away with making negative comments, saying things that are destructive towards people and there has been no accountability. I think that is why people keep posting negative things online because they don’t see any consequences to it,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

Mr. Rodriguez said along with him and his theatre students preparing a 5 minute skit on David’s Law, he has also been talking to his students on the importance of David’s Law.

“I ran a lesson for my classes during testing and really any time that we run those lessons i think it’s important for the students to know that it’s actually something that impacts them and were not just doing a lesson on bullying because the councilors told us to, but because it is actually something important that impacts not only them but the community,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

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