This document provides guidance for students wanting to start a bully awareness group at their school. It outlines the steps to get approval, including getting teacher sponsorship, recruiting other students, drafting a proposal, and planning initial meetings. The benefits of such a group are also discussed, such as further educating students on bullying and empowering them to help peers safely. Overall, the document serves as a helpful guide for students to launch an impactful new club.

1. Student Guide:
How to start a
Student Bully Awareness Group
in your school
© 2012. Bully Prevention Alliance
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2. How to start a student group in your school
CONGRATULATIONS on wanting to start a student group in your school! Student groups are educa-
tional programs that are put together by a group of students in conjunction with a teacher sponsor, and some-
times other adult volunteers, that focus on a cause in which additional education is researched, learned, and
shared between students and staff in order to provide support, encouragement, education and community
awareness. Below is a checklist that you can use to help you get started in this process.
Steps to get started
When deciding to form a student group in ones school there are a few beginning steps that to take:
_____ A good start is to get a group of about 10 friends together. Can you think of 10 friends?
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_____ Decide on what specifically you want to do in your group, or what the purpose of your group is.
Answer the following question:
We want to develop a student group based upon the following issue ______________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____ Next think of some teachers that you can approach to ask if they would be willing to be a Teacher
Sponsor for your student group. Student groups are required by school districts to have a Teacher
Sponsor. Can you think of at least two possible teachers that may want to help you?
__________________________________ __________________________________________
_____ Write up a letter, or send an E-mail, to the two teachers in whom you would like to consider helping
your group by being a teacher sponsor. Your letter, or E-mail does not have to be long. Need a good
example? See the attached example to help get you started! When you write your letter make sure
that you address the following points:
_____ Thanks for taking the time to read your proposal request for assistance on being a teacher
sponsor.
_____ The particular type of student group that you are wanting to form: what is the purpose?
_____ How many students do you have that are interested in helping to start the group?
_____ What day of the week are you wanting to hold your student group after school?
_____ Do you have assistance from someone in the community that can help you develop the group
and provide valuable beginning training and education on the purpose of your group? If so,
who, and what do you know about the organization?
_____ Explain that before you can submit a proposal to the school principal for final approval you
will have to have a teacher who is willing to be a Teacher Sponsor.
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3. _____ Ask the teacher if they will consider your request and get back with you soon.
_____ Ask that if they are unable to assist in your student group as a teacher sponsor if they
would be willing to help by writing a letter of recommendation for your group that
will be submitted to the principal with your proposal request to form the group.
_____ Let the teacher know that your group has also sent the request to other teachers and
state which teachers you have sent the proposal request to. If you can think of more
than two teachers to send the proposal request to then great. That gives the teachers
the ability to check their schedules and see who may be able to work with you.
_____ Tell the teachers that you are looking forward to their response and are excited about
bringing such program to your school.
_____ Sign your letter.
_____ Once you have sent out the letters to the teachers put on a calendar a date in which you will check in
with those teachers to see if they had a chance to review your request and make a decision. Let’s
put that date three (3) days out from the date in which you sent them the proposal request, then also
put it on your calendar to check in with them again in one (1) week.
First follow up date: ______________________________________________________________
Second follow up date (one week since sending request): _________________________________
_____ When your teacher(s) have decided upon whether or not they have the ability to assist your group
prepare your thank you letter to them for their consideration, assistance and guidance. Make up one
special thank you letter to the teacher who has decided that they have the ability to assist you.
See attached for examples of such letter that you can send to them. You always want to send a thank
you letter. It is the polite thing to do and it shows just how seriously you are taking this, which earns
you great support.
_____ Set a date! Schedule a date for your group to meet after school with your new teacher sponsor!
You will want to consider setting a couple of dates if you can. This way you can stay in touch and
make sure that you are well coordinated prior to submitting to your school principal your proposal
request for your student group. Set the dates one (1) week apart:
First meeting date: ______________________________________________________________
Second meeting date: ____________________________________________________________
_____ Prepare your materials! Prior to your first meeting date, prepare materials that you can find that you
can show to your teacher sponsor that will help in preparing your proposal request to your principal.
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4. _____ With your teacher sponsor consider and discuss the list below on what you may need for your proposal
request to your school principal. Some school principals may want all of the following, but some
may only want just a letter. Discuss this with your teacher sponsor and go from there.
_____ Below are some helpful things to prepare, or gather, for your proposal request to your school principal:
_____ Statistics
_____ Articles that discuss the reason why your purpose is a needed one.
_____ Information about an outside agency that could be a valuable resource for your group
in learning and how the information you could learn from that organization could help
in your overall education in the school.
_____ Develop a plan on ideas on how your group will raise funds, if needed, to help you
in doing activities.
_____ Develop a mini budget on what type of materials you may need to help you in your
activities.
_____ Gather letters of support from teachers, parents and others.
_____ Prepare all the information that you may need for your proposal request to your principal and have this
ready for your second meeting with your teacher sponsor.
_____ During your second meeting with your teacher sponsor work on drafting your proposal request to your
principal and have your teacher sponsor check your letter to make sure you have all the needed, and
suggested information. Put your packet together and let the teacher sponsor turn in your requested
proposal to the school principal for you.
_____ Wait to find out the result of your proposal request to the school principal. Schedule three dates in
which to check in with the principal for a decision.
First check up date: _______________________________________________________________
Second check up date: _____________________________________________________________
Third check up date: ______________________________________________________________
_____ When you receive a response from your school principal (whether that decision is a yes or a no to
your requested proposal), send the principal a letter thanking them for their approval or for their
consideration to your request.
_____ If you have received approval for your group to start the particular student group, then get with your
Teacher sponsor and plan your meeting dates.
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5. _____ Set your agenda for your first few meetings.
What do you wish to discuss in your first meeting?
_____ Sometimes the first meetings in student groups is to decide whether or not to have
student group officers. If your group wishes to have student group officers decide on
what type of officers you wish to have. Do you want a President, Vice-President and
Secretary? Would you like to designate someone who will do research for your group?
Would you like to have someone who will be designated to head up group activities that
you can do in school? Would you like to have a designated person who will head up
group activities / fund-raisers in your community? Discuss this topic with your teacher
sponsor and let the teacher sponsor help you decide if that is an option that you would
like to do. This is not something that you have to make a complete decision on in your
first meeting. If you decide you would like to do these things put them on the schedule
for the next meeting.
_____ Discuss activities that you would like to do around the school that will help bring
awareness to your group. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:
_____ Grab some construction paper and design posters that you can hang up
around school. Do not forget to add when your next group meeting is
going to be and where you will be meeting.
_____ Request that the development of your group be announced on the
school’s PA system.
_____ Make up a flyer that discusses your organization and then give these to
the teachers in the school so that they may give them to their students to
take home. Make certain to include in the flyer your groups Mission,
Vision and Goals. Also who is your teacher sponsor, when is your
meetings and where. Who can the parents / students contact for further
information. What type of activities are you planning on doing in school,
after school, in the community? What type of educational value will
such group have on your school and in helping to further the education of
the students in your school?
_____ Plan out what you want to discuss in your next meeting and work on the development of
the next meetings agenda so that you have it already prepared and you know what you
want to get done prior to that next meeting. Give everyone a task to complete.
_____ Consider having your third student group meeting be the meeting in which you start
working together to learn more about the issue in which your groups purpose is about.
Do you want someone to come in and help give you some very valuable educational
information on a particular topic area? The resources are endless on the different topic
areas. Can you think of different areas of issues that you may be interested in getting
assistance on from experts in those different particular areas? Get help from your
teacher sponsor to get with a community organization that will help you in getting
experts who will come in and talk with your group.
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6. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
Be creative!! Have fun!! Learn!!
Stand up! Speak out! Stop Bullying!
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7. Benefits of a student bullying awareness group
There are many wonderful benefits to having a student bullying awareness group in schools. Some of these
benefits include:
* Educationally such groups will give students the ability to further learn about bullying, cyber-
bullying and the specific acts that fall under these two blanketed terms and how these actions
effect education, social skills, the economy, businesses, physical and mental health, public
policy, government policy, the judicial system, and juvenile delinquency.
* Students peers are the main social structure of kids. Kids turn more often to others in their peer
groups before turning to parents about issues due to fear that they will get into further trouble
for the issue; fear that their parent(s) will be worried about them and they do not want their
parent(s) to worry; or that their parent(s) reaction will cause them to have to contend with
further bullying. Student who are in the student groups can help as a resource for their peers
and give them that much needed courage to seek help from trusted adults that will be there to
help them, will take them seriously.
* Student groups do not cost schools anything and are not a financial burden on the school to
have. Students can do their own fundraising in order to help them to purchase supplies that
they may need in order to achieve a project they wish to do, but even more so students can
actually get assistance from many in the community and area businesses to help cover any
supply costs—some businesses will even be willing to donate supplies directly to student
groups for their purpose.
* The student anti-bullying group can work well with an already established student anti-bullying
program that the school may have put into place. It can help to emphasize what is being taught
in the curriculum about bullying. It gives students the opportunity to develop ways in which
they can further retain the lessons. It can help them to also learn ways in which they can
strategically handle conflict resolution in a positive and productive manner thus increasing the
student’s educational growth, social growth, leadership skills.
* Through student groups a school, or even a school district, has a excellent source of being able
to evaluate how a school is progressing on the issue. School administrators and school district
administrators can develop surveys in which students in student groups can respond truthfully
and such can be used in conjunction with evaluating need within a school, or school district, on
potential changes that could be made, or put into place, that are pertinent. Such can essentially
help a school, or school district, in saving money.
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8. Example Teacher Sponsor Proposal Request
The following can be used to send a teacher a proposal request for being a teacher sponsor for your group.
{Date}
RE: Teacher Sponsor for a Student Bully Awareness Group
Dear _________________________:
Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal request for seeking a teacher sponsor for a student bully
awareness group in which we would like to start at ___________{name of your school} .
We would like to start a student bully awareness group because of the issue being one that is highly critical.
We as students would like to learn more about bullying, cyber-bullying and the specific acts that fall within
these two blanketed terms and from that education help our peers who may need a friend, who may need en-
couragement to seek help before something tragic occurs, and to help each other to build our social skills in a
manner that will help us in our future educational and professional career goals.
We are aware that we will need to seek a teacher sponsor in order to have such a group in our school and prior
to submitting our proposal request to the school principal allowing us to have our group. We would like to
know if you would be interested in assisting us and doing us the honor of being our teacher sponsor. Together
we can make absolutely certain that what needs to be done will be and that educationally we can help improve
our school.
Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing back from you soon and will follow up with
you on {insert date}. We have also submitted this proposal request to other teachers so that if one cannot do it
then maybe another one will be able to, or maybe together as a team we can really make a difference. The
teachers that we also sent this to are: _______{list the names of all the teachers in which you are sending the
proposal to} ___.
Respectfully:
{Student name}; {Student name}; {Student name}; {Student name}; {Student name}; {Student name};
{Student name}; {Student name}; {Student name}; and {Student name}
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9. Bully Prevention Alliance ™
www.bpindyinc.org
www.facebook.com/bpindyinc
Office: (317) 721-8201
E-mail: info@bpindyinc.org
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