Our View: College handles bullying correctly

Full marks to Otumoetai College for its strong and decisive response to the cyberbullying of a student.
Principal Dave Randell has seen to it that the student responsible for the offensive Facebook page has been stood down and the other students who commented on the page are to spend lunchtimes collecting rubbish.
The page entitled 'Putting your stick away after a hard day of being a social outcast' was created to mock a student at the college who carried a stick around school and occasionally did tricks for fellow teenagers.
The page sparked outrage online with a Trade Me message thread set up to encourage people to ask Facebook to ban the site, which was later removed.
Mr Randell, who has been very upfront in his handling of the issue, has spoken to all the parties involved including the bullied boy and his mother.
After dealing with the page's creator, Mr Randell spoke to all the students involved and about five were to carry out "community work" on the school grounds.
The bullied boy, who told Mr Randell 'they're the ones with the problem and I'm not letting them get me down' is also to be admired with his mature response to this appalling behaviour.
What is concerning out of this issue is the apparent nonchalant response from one of the parents involved.
She thought her son's 'Golden' comment on the page may have been referring to the bullied boy performing tricks for students and she hadn't spoken to her son about the issue.
If nothing else, this issue should be a tremendous opportunity for the parents of teenage students to openly discuss bullying in its many forms.
For many of us who were schooled in the pre-digital age, bullying was more of an upfront physical action whereas today's youngsters must deal with the additional problems associated with social networking sites and text messaging.
It seems that some of the students involved in this incident didn't see their actions as bullying.
They need it to be made clear to them that it certainly was.
Often when anti-social incidents like this occur, experts tell us that the solution to many of today's problems comes with education.
This incident is a great example of an issue that is prevalent in today's society and one that should be openly discussed at home so no teenager is left in any doubt that when they belittle one of their peers, it is bullying.
Everyone involved in this incident should be very clear about that.