Yellow Ribbon Week ended today, culminating a weeklong focus on educating students to prevent harm to others and themselves.

Randall Tiffany, College Career Prep and Health teacher, has often given advice to students who had been bullied before. “I think to a small degree there is a bullying problem at Clark,” Tiffany said. “But it’s nowhere close to other high schools.”

Tiffany said that if anyone is a victim of bullying, they should notify a teacher or a parent. “The person being bullied might not want to tell someone maybe because they think the person bullying them will retaliate,” Tiffany said. “We cover this in health class.”

Judy Sanzo, Coordinator of Yellow Ribbon Week, said that Yellow Ribbon Week has occurred every school year since Clark Magnet High School started in 1998. “It’s a District-wide event and we make information packets for teachers with the purple wristbands,” Sanzo said. “But due to budget cuts we didn’t this year.”

Junior Diana Khosrovyan, Vice President of Kids for a Cure, said people should treat others the way they want to be treated. “If I see someone bullying someone, I would to tell them to stop,” Khosrovyan said. “They would not like it if they were being treated that way.”

To spread awareness of preventing harm to others and to oneself, Sanzo decided to pick an odd day where all the seniors had classes as well, so that all students can learn to help themselves and others. That included making informational packets for teachers to try to discuss it with students and having posters for students to sign.

“I think with all ninth grader kids there’s bullying and it’s like a rite of passage,” Sanzo said. “I think kids say things and they don’t mean it and sometimes that happens.”