When five Masconomet Middle School students allegedly sexually harassed a female classmate late last month, they each earned a 10-day suspension.
Local experts said the boys' behavior, while undoubtedly inappropriate, is neither out of step with their age nor new to their generation.
Instead, schools are responding with increasing severity.
Mary Manning, principal of Salem's Collins Middle School, said long gone are the days of educators dismissing certain behaviors as boys being boys.
"It is simply not acceptable," she said.
Manning, an educator for 37 years, stressed that these days girls are just as likely to harass.
Teachers have learned to address the behaviors swiftly, firmly and consistently, said Janis Flint-Ferguson, chairwoman of Gordon College's department of middle school and secondary education.
But school officials need to take a look at how the entire system responds to this sort of behavior. At Masconomet, five eighth-grade boys made sexual comments to a girl at various times over the course of a week. On at least two occasions, there may have been some inappropriate touching, Superintendent Anthony Bent said at the time. The boys were suspended on Oct. 2.
Bent did not respond to multiple messages left for him this week.
"That kind of bullying, that kind of harassment, I think, has been there for a long time, and we have not dealt with it as fully, systemically, as we should have," Flint-Ferguson said.
Peabody High social worker Heather Steckel said administrators feel they have to respond to harassment of all kinds, not just one-on-one but harassment that's done electronically and by cell phone.
"They're more apt to respond than they used to be and less apt to blame the victim," Steckel said. "It's a good thing that there are more consequences happening these days."
Coming of age
Masconomet Regional, which serves students from Boxford, Topsfield and Middleton, isn't the only middle school coping with sexual harassment or violent crimes in general.
Public middle schools had a higher incident rate of violent crimes — 41 incidents per 1,000 — than primary or high schools, according to a survey of the 2007-2008 school year released from the U.S. Department of Education in May. Primary schools' rate of violent crimes was 26 per 1,000, while high schools saw 22 per 1,000.
Steckel said the higher incident rates in middle school make sense given what's happening physically to students. Their hormones begin raging, a process that leaves boys struggling a bit more.
"Therefore, they're less in control," she said.
By the time they reach high school, they have a better handle on their emotions, Steckel said.
Middle-schoolers' emotions tend to bubble up quickly, Manning said.
"By high school, most people have sort of figured it out and the issues aren't so close to the surface, and they deal with them more maturely," she said.
Flint-Ferguson said it isn't just the hormones affecting young adolescents. Their brains haven't developed fully yet.
"Middle-school students just don't have enough filters in their brain to separate what's appropriate to what's inappropriate," she said. "They say whatever pops in their head, and they like responses to it."
Sea change
Columbine marked a major shift for educators, Flint-Ferguson said.
"We began to realize some of these kids who felt bullied were going to bully back," she said.
School officials started to scrutinize students and began asking themselves if they saw the kinds of behaviors of the two shooters at Columbine High School and other forms of harassment. They responded to the behaviors more quickly, Flint-Ferguson said.
In the past, teachers might have told a student who was being harassed to stay away from the perpetrator, but that only punishes the victim, Flint-Ferguson said.
"We have to take on the educational component there," she said. "Again, we're just getting kids to think about it differently, and once you can start working with that, then the positive peer pressure will work in your favor."
The Salem principal said her teachers today respond differently than they did a generation ago.
At Collins, the work of staff and students in FED Up (for Fairness, Equity and Democracy) has empowered students to tell a teacher with less worry, Manning said. FED Up creates program on topics like bullying and sexual harassment.
"The overall approach has to be education and prevention and hopefully helping them understand why it's so inappropriate as opposed to punishing someone who did it," she said.
In the end, Flint-Ferguson welcomed Masconomet's response to sexual harassment.
"It's not just those five kids," the professor said. "We need to take a look at the whole system around that."
She hopes Masconomet school officials will follow up with an education piece for students. And she hopes the boys come to realize why the girl reacted as she did, understand how it affected them and her, and become advocates for other students.
Man Falls Off Crane, Dies After Police Standoff
Raw Video: Cop Shoots Man Eating Another's Face
Russia Condemns Ally Syria Over Massacre of 108
Raw Video: Earthquake Shakes Evacuees in Italy
Dairy Farm Uses Chiropractor to Help Cows
Unexpected Smog in Pristine National Parks
Air Canada Plane Makes Emergency Landing
New Ticks Spread Across Southeast, Diseases Rise
Bring Your Own Tech Programs Charge Up Students
Pope's Butler Vows to Help Vatican Investigation
Mother of Allegedly Abused Girl Denies Claims
Raw Video: 19 Dead in Qatar Shopping Mall Fire
Service Dogs Help Wash. Soldiers Battling PTSD
Raw Video: Heckler Bursts in on Blair Testimony
Japan Farmers Plant, Seek Radiation-free Rice
Vatican in Chaos After Butler Arrested for Leaks
