Roundtable in Richardson: US Senator Cornyn meets with mental health experts, school officials about bullying

Appropriate cell phone and social media access for minors is something many schools and parents of young children must consider, especially with ongoing concerns over privacy and cyberbullying.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) visited a Richardson middle school on Thursday to discuss efforts to protect children from harmful or inappropriate content online and its effects on mental health.

Forest Meadow Middle School hosted the lawmaker for a roundtable discussion with school, district and mental health advocates.

The district previously led the charge in implementing a policy where students’ cell phones are locked in specialized pouches during school hours.

“Since implementing the pouches our incidents of bullying and cyberbullying have drastically decreased,” said principal Susan Burt during the roundtable. “I can say that we actually haven’t had any new reports of bullying that meet that element, especially in the cyber realm and so we’re really excited and it goes to show us how important it is to remove those devices from the school because it definitely does impact our students.”

Cornyn also heard from Kingston Cano, a 9^th grader who says he endured three years of relentless bullying in another school district.

“A lot of the times it was through social media, text message,” said the teen reading a prepared statement. “I couldn’t trust the adults in my school because they didn’t do anything to the boys and me reporting them put a bigger target on my back.”

His mother, Nicole Cano, thanked Cornyn for his efforts to protect children.

“There are too many kids who are silently suffering and families who do not know their rights or the steps to be able to take to protect their children,” said Cano. “Too many kids are taking their lives.”

This gathering, taking place during National Bullying Prevention Month, also coincides with Cornyn’s twin bills aimed at protecting minors from online dangers, like cyberbullying.

He says the ‘Kids Online Safety Act’ and the ‘Children’s and Teens Privacy Protection Act,’ COSA and COPA for short, would force social media companies to police their own platforms, and prohibit collecting personal data of minors, without parental consent.

“This legislation will provide children and parents the tools they need to keep dangerous content out of their social media feeds and limit some of the addictive features like the algorithms that, like I said, sort of draw you in and it’s hard to break.”

Dr. Betsy Kennard, a pediatric psychologist, at Children's Hospital in Dallas and UTSW thanked Cornyn for funding to study the topic.

“We did a study and of kids who are being treated for depression and 40% have problematic social media use and associated with that, which is not being able to put down the phone, being on five hours a day, those kids have high rates suicide attempts, thoughts of pain, alcohol abuse, and poor academic performance,” she said.

Kennard agrees with phone-free policies at schools.

Depression rates have doubled since 2009, she said, adding that at any given school, between 8-10% of students have made a suicide attempt.

“The research is very strong: banning cell phones in schools increases academic performance and it increases social interactions,” she said.

The panel agreed that finding solutions should involve parents who will hopefully implement phone-free hours at home.

Near the end of the panel, Cornyn asked the two young people in attendance who had survived bullying why it’s so hard to simply delete certain social media sites when content begins to affect one’s well-being.

Katie Anderson responded, “There’s something that holds you to what are they saying? What’s being said? I have to know.”