WICKED and BullyBust Announce Winning Schools for the 2012 'For Good' Video Contest

The National School Climate Center's (NSCC) BullyBust Campaign and the Blockbuster Broadway musical WICKED today announced the winners of the 2012 "For Good" Video Contest: Grand Prize winning school Our Lady Queen of Heaven (Lake Charles, LA), and two finalist schools: Jericho Middle School (Jericho, NY) and Grand Valley High School (Orwell, OH).

A key aspect of BullyBust and WICKED's ongoing partnership, the "For Good" video contest was launched as part of the Upstander Alliance (www.bullybust.org/upstander) to inspire youth across the country to show how they are creating positive communities of upstanders against bullying - people who stand up and become part of the solution to end harmful harassment, teasing, and violence in our nation's schools. More than 1800 schools nationwide have joined the Upstander Alliance, which provides free resources to help student teams, in collaboration with adult moderators at the school, create targeted community-wide engagement projects focused on preventing bullying and raising awareness.

Grand prize winner, Our Lady Queen of Heaven (OLQHS), from Lake Charles, LA began to promote Upstander behavior in their school by starting an anti-bullying club called SWAG – Students With Anti-Bullying Goals. SWAG is all about putting the power for positive change in the hands of those that are affected the most: youth. Through pledges, community engagement efforts, curriculum-based supports, and student-led plays and assemblies, SWAG has truly transformed the school into a community of Upstanders. According to Sue Ellen Stokeld, school guidance counselor and moderator for the video contest, since the beginning of SWAG, "OLQHS has become a SAFER place where bullying is no longer acceptable. The school's conversation has changed. SWAG has brought together students, teachers, faculty, parents, and friends - all working towards a unified goal of creating the SAFEST environment for everyone in the community." As the Grand Prize winning school, Our Lady Queen of Heaven will receive a $500.00 grant from BullyBust to continue its excellent bully prevention efforts and a special visit from select cast members of WICKED this fall!

Our two finalists will receive exciting gifts from our partners and WICKED:

Jericho Middle School of Long Island, New York took the challenge of the "For Good" video contest and excelled to become one of our amazing finalists. Along with their Technology Teacher, Mr. Matthew Silvia, the 6th grade class at Jericho submitted their video during their Bully Prevention Awareness Month. With the help of their school activities and BullyBust's Upstander Alliance tool kits the class began to engage in meaningful conversations about bullying and what it means to be an Upstander in their school community. When the class learned about the contest they stood up to the challenge to show other schools their passion, positivity and Upstander behavior.

Grand Valley High School showed their spirit for WICKED and passion for making change in their school through their video. To the Ashtabula County Technical & Career Center Interactive Multimedia class at Grand Valley High School, this video was not only important to their school but also to their wider community. During filming for the video, the tragic shootings took place at Chardon High School, which neighbors Grand Valley. According to Multimedia Instructor, Kris Doran, that event changed his students' focus and scope for the video. The day after the event they began working on their video as a tribute to the students of Chardon and a way to lift the spirits of their peers.

BullyBust appreciates the incredible support of the "For Good" video contest judging panel, which includes Facebook Safety, WICKED creative team and management, the directors of BULLY, and the Cyberbullying Research Center. On behalf of the entire panel, we extend our deepest congratulations to all of our participating schools on their outstanding videos and inspiring upstander efforts in their communities. We are thrilled to have them as a part of our BullyBust team as official Ambassadors for the Upstander Alliance movement. Together, we ARE standing strong against bullying!