As national attention continues to focus on the epidemic of teen bullying, La Jolla High School is taking a proactive approach. The local high school is participating in No Name-Calling Week, a nationwide event sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

While No Name-Calling Week was first established in 2004, this will be the first year that La Jolla High is participating. Students from a club called VACHI, Voices Against Cruelty, Hatred and Violence, are responsible for bringing the event to the school.

“I thought it would be a good idea for the school and faculty members to hear about it,” VACHI President Megan Micheletti said. “It’s nice to make students, faculty and parents more aware of bullying.”

As part of No Name-Calling Week, students are being asked to sign a pledge to deter bullying. It asks students to not bully others, intervene in situations where others are being bullied and support efforts to end bullying and name calling. So far, the club has received more than 100 signed pledges.

In addition to signing the pledge, students can submit original artwork, poetry or music to the Creative Expressions contest that is taking place nationwide. These works are meant to convey the students’ experiences of name calling and their ideas for putting a stop to bullying.

While combating bullying and name calling is a year-round task, participation in these events will help foster further action.

“I think teachers tend to do a fairly good job as far as intervening when possible,’ VACHI club adviser and English teacher Jim Essex said. “But really, we’d like to see a little more proactiveness via the student body.”

The San Diego Unified School district voted last October to establish an anti-bullying task force. The resolution was an expansion of their previous efforts, and includes specific guidelines to provide a safe environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

“Words are powerful and they’re meant to be, but words can be hurtful especially to young people,” said San Diego Unified board member Scott Barnett. “The task force will be coming back with recommendations in dealing with bullying, and not just the traditional ways of bullying.”

The prominence of social networks has made the task of combating bullying much more challenging, with gray areas about what controls schools can exercise over nontraditional means of bullying. Regardless of the way students are bullied, one uniform theme is that it is important to speak up.

“Personally taking a stand and standing up for others is the hardest but it has the greatest impact,” Micheletti said. “Or talking to teachers and counselors and letting them know that something’s up. Just be a friend.”

Barnett agrees that students can be the most powerful force in these situations.

“When the students take the lead on it, it’s certainly going to be more effective than the school board passing an edict,” he said. “It takes more courage to step in and say ‘hey, stop’ than it does to go along with the group or say nothing.”

For more information on No Name-Calling Week or to take the pledge to combat name calling yourself, visit the GLSEN website.