By CHARLIE DENISON | Reporter - March 27, 2019 

Bullying has made its way into the headlines recently, both locally and nationally. It’s a problem that persists generation to generation, and it’s not going away.

Aware of this issue, Lewistown school counselors and administrators are doing what they can in hopes to prevent repeated incidents.

Teresa Majerus, a counselor at the Lewistown Junior High School and Fergus High School, said the schools have many programs focused on bullying prevention, such as Power Up and Speak Out, a Montana-made anti-bullying toolkit.

“Power Up and Speak Out emphasizes healthy peer and dating relationships,” Teresa said. “We talk about one-sided power and two-sided power. A teacher has one-sided power, an authority figure has one-sided power, but your peers do not.

If you are in a relationship with one-sided power, you should evaluate whether that’s a healthy relationship or not.”

Power Up and Speak Out helps to better define what bullying is and attempts to discover the underlying issues creating the behavior in the first place.

Teresa said teachers and administrators regularly talk with students about the different roles of bullying: victim, bully, bystander and upstander. 
“A bystander just stands there and watches, while an upstander interferes,  saying something like, ‘you need to leave that person alone,’” said Teresa.

LPS Parents and Students,

Campus Parent and Campus Student provide real-time access to announcements, assignments, attendance, grades, schedules and more. See what is currently happening in the classroom so you can understand, monitor, and participate in the educational process.

The New Campus Student (for students) and Campus Parent (for parents) Apps are available in both the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

Download your free app for real-time access to grades, assignments, attendance, schedules, announcements and more.

If you are using the old Infinite Campus app, please download the new app. The old app, eventually, is no longer be supported.

Welcome to Garfield Elementary School, located in the heart of Central Montana. We are home to the Lewistown Public Schools' Kindergarten and 1^st grade students.  We have 220 students enrolled with an average class size of 18 students per class.  As students enter our school we strive to create a nuturing and safe environment for learning.  The staff at Garfield Elementary is committed to educate every child and help them reach their full potential as a life long learner and responsible citizen.