New Point Break program designed to break barriers and promote anti-bullying sentiment

On April 13, around 100 Granite Bay High School students took a bus to Eureka School to go to a Point Break workshop.
Point Break was formed about 20 years ago in Stockton, by Campus Life, a program that has been helping high school students by creating connections between students and emphasizing positive values at high schools for almost 70 years.
“The purpose of Point Break is to improve the behaviors, values and attitudes of high school students on their campuses and in their communities, intervening before acts of hatred or violence occur,” the Point Break website said.
Point Break is not just a local program. In fact, the program has spread from Stockton to all over the country.
“In the Sacramento area we have 12 participating schools. (Point Break staff in) West Palm Beach, Florida; Schenectady, New York; and Oregon chapters bring that total up to about 50,” Teddi Pettee, the director of Point Break, said.
GBHS English teacher Judy Daniels helped out the Point Break event. Last spring, her 15– year old– niece committed suicide because of bullying and harassment. These tragedies are exactly the thing that Point Break is trying to prevent.
“I had to do something to make a difference at GBHS where I knew we had a number of students who were experiencing the same sort of problems,” Daniels said. “We have more than a few kids suffering from the depression that accompanies feelings of isolation from peers because others treat them either as too different or … worse yet, they feel invisible because no one ever connects with them.”
This is why she got $1500 donation from a family in the community and $2000 from a school boosters meeting for GBHS’s first Point Break session in April.
At the Point Break workshop, guest speakers Bryant Garcia, a motivational speaker from Elk Grove, told a story about his childhood in New York, where he did drugs to fit in. Now that he is older, he has realized that his friends were only laughing at him, using him as a source of entertainment.
Another speaker, Amy Cooper, told a story about her tightly-knit group of friends in high school. They thought they were easily the closest group of friends at their school, until one friend switched to another school because they teased her. Her story explained how even if you do not mean any harm, anything you say can hurt someone’s feelings.
“I had no idea so many of my friends had considered suicide as a way of dealing with the pain in their lives,” said an anonymous student who went to a workshop at another school.
“I want to help my friends stay alive,” another anonymous student said. “I didn’t realize that my words could be so painful to others. I’m not going to tease people so much.”
Although Point Break workshops only have room for 100 or so students, they help entire schools. Those 100 students will be able to tell their friends to stop teasing or bullying and spread the positive values that they learned.
“You can’t imagine the impact Point Break has had on our kids, our school and even our community,” said Bea Landing, Assitant Principal at Bishop Union High School.
“I get calls daily from grateful parents who say their son or daughter is a changed person and the school has a kinder, gentler feel.”
The positive effect that Point Break has on communities is a big part of why the staff likes doing what they do.
“We feel honored… and are always awed by the reaction of participants,” Pettee said.
In addition to the Point Break event, Daniels helped create a school club called Campus Connections.
“We created Campus Connections to provide an on campus service club that could promote various activities like Point Break, which we see as having a positive impact on school culture,” Daniels said. “And we want to become actively involved in helping other clubs and groups who have a similar mission and vision.”
A main goal of Campus Connections is to raise money for more Point Break events in the coming years while providing a place for people to have fun and make friends.
Mrs. Daniels managed to raise $3,500 without the Campus Connections club for the first Point Break, the club now will be raising the money for the Point Break events to come.
There will be two Point Breaks in the 2010-11 school year, with about 100 students able to go to each.
“As long as schools request our services, we will pull together dynamic teams of empowering adults from the community who will work with schools to create climates in which students feel safe and valued,” Pettee said.