KIRKSVILLE, MO -- While schools across the Show-Me State start to open for classes, a safe schools coalition is working to keep an anti-bullying bill alive.  Anti-bullying bills are common amongst states however the Missouri bill would single out groups for the sake of overall safety; categories include bullying by race, religion, disabilities, and gender identity. 

“If a person is bullied because of a particular category, then that’s wrong and whatever we need to do to make that more explicit and to reduce the chance that bullying will occur, I believe is a good thing” said St. Rep. Rebecca McClanahan.

While McClanahan agrees with grouping bullying into categories, Republican St. Rep. candidate Zach Wyatt thinks the solution should be at home.

“More kids need to be taught that right from wrong because teachers aren’t there to enforce the discipline that parents are suppose to teach kids” said Wyatt.  “Teachers are there to teach our students to become successful.  When the state starts coming in to tell a school you need to do this, this, and this, it doesn’t pertain to anything with educating the students, we have a problem there.  You know our kids need to have an education first.”

While Wyatt did agree an anti-bullying bill should be in place, he did not feel that categorizing bullying would have an overall affect.

“All of the efforts can be made to reduce bullying for kids” said McClanahan.  “It hurts kids and as a mental health nurse myself, I’m aware of some of the damage that can occur when kids are made fun of because of one of their characteristics and that’s not OK and so we need to give all of the skills necessary to make that happen.”

Religious leaders and disability advocates say including categories is vital in promoting the safety of all students.