ANTIQUES SHOPS

The Detroit School of Arts will be the first self-governing school under a plan by Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts to transfer decision-making power for a select group of schools to a group of overseers specific to that school.

The school's governing council will be made up of representatives from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan School of Education and the Detroit arts Corridor Organization, among others. The school will not be a charter school, said Roberts. Teachers will still be under a collective bargaining agreement. DPS will continue to own the school building, said Roberts. And students will expect to see an emphasis on academics and well as music at the state-of-the-art school in Midtown Detroit.

The goal, said Roberts, is to turn the school into the best in the country by taking decision-making out of DPS offices in the Fisher Building, and putting them in the hands of the school itself.

"We're going to do everything in DPS possible to support this school," he said Monday, with several DSA students looking on.

Council members include Lester Monts, Professor of Music at U-M and Glenda Price, President Emeritus, Marygrove College and a newly appointed member of the Detroit Financial Advisory Board. One of the council's first jobs will be to hire a principal to the replace the one that is leaving and to hire or rehire teachers that had to reapply for their jobs. The school will run year-to-year under an agreement with DPS that they meet all education requirements and academic milestones, as well as keep track of finances, lest they lose their status as a self-governing school.

The other schools to be self-governed include Cody and Osborn High Schools.

Students said they were relieved to hear the school wouldn't be turned into a charter, but still were concerned about the changes that are in store.

Khalil Wilson, 16, said he left a charter school because he didn't like the way it was run. He was concerned that DSA would become a charter.

"I think it will be a little bit of a change, but I'm not going to oppose it. I'm open to all ideas," he said.

Merissa Flores, shown in a public service announcement, collapses to the ground, a bottle of pills rolling out of her limp hand.

Flores, 16, a sophomore, completed the one-minute video with friends from Des Moines Hoover High School as part of a class project. The project represents the types of anti-bullying efforts most often undertaken at schools around the Des Moines area and the state.

The efforts are typically initiated by an individual student, teacher or school rather than an entire district.

Some districts are tackling broader efforts, however. All eighth-graders at two Waterloo middle schools this spring saw the documentary Bully. The Dubuque school district in the fall wants to pair the film with a strong anti-bullying message.

The release of Bully in Iowa coincided with the death of an openly gay northwest Iowa teen who hanged himself after a month of relentless bullying online and in his schools hallways. The movie and the teens death brought increased attention to the issue across the state.

In central Iowa, school officials cited some programs and curriculum that had been in place before the movies March 30 release: West Des Moines uses anti-bullying curriculum for grades K-6. Some Ankeny students can take an anti-bullying pledge. Des Moines schools now teach about cyberbullying. Urbandale Middle School conducts an annual survey to measure school safety.

Bullying can have a devastating effect on students academic and emotional health, said Lois Brass, head of the Des Moines Public Schools counseling department. Children who are bullied can become socially withdrawn, skip school or slip in their schoolwork, officials said.

The Iowa Department of Education is leading the most comprehensive effort.

A $14 million federal grant that runs through 2014 is being used to measure how safe and secure students feel in 20 participating schools across Iowa.

By the end of June, teams of students, parents, staff and community members tied to each school will recommend ways to make changes that could reduce bullying incidents by creating a safer and more welcoming culture in school.

Part of the challenge is distinguishing true bullying incidents from mere teasing or an isolated physical altercation, experts said.

A one-time thing, by definition, really isnt bullying, Brass said. Bullying is targeted. Its ongoing. Its very specific.

Critics say incidents are under-reported

Bullying has been an issue in Iowas schools for decades, but a 2007 state law requiring districts to keep records about in-school harassment forced the issue to the forefront, district officials said.

However, critics say schools have so far documented only a fraction of bullying cases. Incidents reported by Iowa schools showed only about 1 percent of K-12 schoolchildren were bullied last year. That stands in sharp contrast to studies that show one-fifth of high school students nationwide are bullied.

A 2010 Iowa Youth Survey by the Iowa Department of Public Health found that half of all students in grades 6, 8, and 11 reported they had been the target of some form of physical, verbal or electronic bullying within the previous 30 days.

Officials point to signs that more incidents are being reported as public awareness is raised. In West Des Moines, for example, 137 incidents of bullying were confirmed last school year, up 31 percent from three years earlier. The total still represents less than 2 percent of the districts 9,000 students.

In part because of the discrepancy between survey findings and incidents reported by schools, the state this fall will require districts to report more detailed bullying data.

Parent: Community needs to step up

Officials in districts around the state say digital communication tools such as text messaging, Facebook and Twitter make it difficult to detect and police bullying. Social media allow students to easily harass each other outside of school, officials said.

As school administrators ramp up their efforts to spread anti-bullying messages among students, West Des Moines mother Chris Young said town hall meetings on the topic could encourage parents and other community members to take a more active role in preventing bullying.

Most students, including Youngs 16-year-old daughter, are neither bullies nor the target for abuse at school.

I think if we had more community forums, more of those of us that are on the periphery might find ways to do something positive, Young said.

Just last week, Flores, the Hoover High School student who made the anti-bullying video, said she stood up for a classmate who had been tormented by the same boy all year. She said she told the boy to keep his mouth shut if he didnt have anything nice to say and he did just that. The reaction of the bullied girl?

She said, Thank you so much. No one has ever done that for me, Flores said.

Reporters Tiffany DeMasters, Kyle Munson, Sara Sleyster and Mary Stegmeir contributed

to this story.