By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Apr 29 | A week after Minnesota Senator Al Franken (D) called for legislation to address the burgeoning problem of cyber-bullying and Anti-Gay bullying occurring daily in America's public senior high & middle schools, a New Jersey middle school principal tells ABCNews Chief Political correspondent & host of ABCNews Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos, he has urged parents to install software to restrict, block, and monitor the sites their children visit, and to check their kids' text messages.
During the early morning interview, Anthony Orsini, principal at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J., told Stephanopoulos that the online taunting used to be limited to students in eighth grade or higher. Now he's seeing kids as young as fourth grade creating Facebook pages to bash a classmate.
"There is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!" Orsini said, calling on parents to prohibit their kids' access.
It's not so much the risk posed by adults that worries him, Orsini said. Rather, it's what children can do to one another in status updates, photo tags, and wall postings that's compelling him to act.
"It is not hyperbole for me to write that the pain caused by social networking sites is beyond significant," Orsini told parents. "It is time for every single member of the B.F. community to take a stand!" Orsini urged parents this week via e-mail.
"It's become meaner and meaner and they don't understand" the impact, he said. "They aren't socially and emotionally ready to understand."
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