A group of sophomore boys stand at the entrance of the math building after lunch everyday waiting for her. As she walks by, she turns from a friend into a target, and they wait for her to finally answer the question she has been dreading, “Hit the team?” Rachel Sutton is prepared for the harassment because it has become a daily routine with the same obvious answer.
“No.”

“Kids think messing with other girls or boys about sex is a joke, but it’s serious,” Mike Wade, sophomore class principal, said.

This type of harassment goes further than a tap on the butt or an unwanted kiss, and according to Wade, that is the part students do not realize. Standing in groups in the hall yelling at girls to “get with the team” is taken just as seriously as physically assaulting someone at KHS.

“Guys will ask random girls to hook up with them at school all the time, and to be honest, it makes school an uncomfortable place to be at,” Sutton, sophomore, said. “When it’s coming from your friends, it’s a thousand times worse.”

According to Sutton, these comments are minor and it has not gotten to the point of telling a teacher, but administrators encourage students to report any type of harassment. Sutton feels the hardest part is not exactly the words that are being said, but who they come from. Friendships were demolished due to the words and questions that are asked on a daily basis, and according to Wade this could all end if one person just walked away.

“Who’s out there that’s going to be a hero instead of a bum?” Wade, said. “Who’s gonna say stop?”

Harassment has also made its way to Facebook and Twitter. If it is tweeting at someone or a tweet to all, the degrading hashtags are out there.

“Sexual harassment through social networking makes people braver.” Wade said.

Chats on Facebook and indirect tweets avoid the confrontation that most people fear, but putting your words online stay there just as long as they do in someone’s mind.
In order for administrators to act upon incidents outside of school, a student has to print off the tweet or Facebook post and bring it to school, or the problem has to disrupt the learning day.
The handbook states any act of sexual name calling, the spreading of sexual rumors and making sexual jokes is indecent and unacceptable. This includes taunting a student about their sexuality regarding the sexual orientation. Many students did not know calling someone gay as a slang term, or doing just the opposite and saying, “no homo” is under the same category.

“Telling a student he or she is gay in a negative way is like telling someone they shouldn’t be happy with how they are, and that’s exactly how they will start to feel,” Tom Gaither-Ganim, counselor, said.

Students may take sexual innuendos as a joke, but KHS does not, and it is a level four offense: OSS for 10 days, and possibly 180 days.
According to Wade administrators work hard to stop the harassment, but since they are not always around to hear it they need students to feel comfortable reporting any harassment they see. Students should also feel safe telling any teacher, counselor or administrator if another student, or themselves have been harassed.

“One person is all it takes to change this,” Wade, said. “If only that one person would stop hiding behind the crowd.”