Schools find campaign talk conflicts with no-bullies message

The nasty personal tweets and sound bites of the 2016 Republican presidential campaign are reverberating in classrooms, running counter to the anti-bullying policies that have emerged in recent years amid several high-profile suicides.

For teacher David Arenstam's high school class in Saco, Maine, the campaign has been one long civics lesson: "Can you really ban a whole group of people from coming into the country?" the students will ask, or "What's the KKK, and do they still really exist?"

The conflict landed on Sioux City, Iowa, Superintendent Paul Gausman's doorstep after Trump decided to hold a campaign rally in a school building.

[...] it was the idea of free speech, the right to assemble and policies against discriminating based on something someone said or did that prevailed, Gausman said this week.

Pickerington, Ohio, school counselor Kris Owen said students should be reminded that potential colleges and employers won't find a Twitter feed full of insults as amusing as some have found the candidates'.

Ryan's teacher at Lorraine Academy worries about the future of the bullying prevention efforts promoted by President Barack Obama in recent years, which included a 2011 White House anti-bullying summit and a 2010 YouTube video for the "It Gets Better" project aimed at bullied gay youth.