Activities will take place throughout Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Wednesday to help kids understand the seriousness of bullying.

In the meantime, the local board of education will look at a policy on Wednesday developed for the school district to make schools safe and caring.

But for the students at Yennadon Elementary's cyber school, learning about Internet safety and bullying is paramount because they are constantly connected to the Internet.

The three taglines for the cyber classes, led by Jessica Wilson and Dale MacQuarrie, are respect for themselves, responsible use of the Internet, and privacy - knowing what should be put out in the ethernet and what shouldn't.

"Our kids are online for a lot of things," Wilson said, for example, collaborating on Skype, emailing, face-time, Moodle. "We teach them the appropriate use of all those tools."

The students recently wrote a fictional piece called How social media ruined my life, and Wilson was amazed at the students' writing. It was a topic they could relate to personally because they are so connected online.

"I was blown away by some of the writing," Wilson said.

Antibullying activities have been happening throughout the school district for several years, and Wilson said she thinks "for our kids, it is making a difference" although she acknowledged there is still bullying going on among youth.

A policy, which has been developed through the past year, called "Safe, caring and healthy schools" will be before the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board Wednesday for consideration.

The policy states that to be safe, caring, and socially responsibly, schools must be free of bullying, cyber-bullying, harassment, threat, intimidation, violence, verbal, physical and sexual abuse, discrimination, theft, and vandalism.

The policy continues that schools will not tolerate intoxication or banned substances, weapons and explosives, and intruders or trespassers.

The policy suggests that the board recognizes students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, intersex, queer, or questioning as facing "a unique set of challenges" within schools and communities including being targets for discriminatory behaviours."

mrantanen@mrtimes.com