Initially, Grant Union High School’s Billy Radinovich thought the black markings on her senior parking space were tire tracks from someone peeling out in the school parking lot.

However, after pulling her car out of the spot, the glaring ugliness of the spray-painted message came through loud and clear: “450LB,” a cruel public shaming referencing her weight.

“My instant reaction was: why?” Radinovich said.

Sadly, Radinovich’s experience underscores the fact that bullying is far too common in schools around the state and across the country.

In the most recent edition of the Oregon Health Authority’s Healthy Teens Survey, conducted in 2019, three out of 10 Oregon eighth-graders surveyed reported they had been bullied at least once in the past 30 days.

That number was slightly higher close to home, with 35% of eighth-graders in Lake, Harney and Grant counties reporting that they had experienced bullying in the previous month.

The numbers were lower for high school juniors in the region (which includes the Prairie City and Grant school districts), but they were still alarming at 25% and higher than the statewide average of 20%.

Nationally, 28% of middle-schoolers surveyed said they had been bullied one or more times during the most recent 30-day period, according to a 2019 study conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nationwide figure for high school students was 16%. The average for students of all ages was 20%, or one in five.

Still, there are reasons to be optimistic: According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, bullying in schools has decreased by 11% over the last 10 years.

What is bullying?

Traditionally viewed by some as a rite of passage everyone has to go through in life, bullying can have very real health consequences for children and teens.

For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that kids who are bullied are more likely to go through depression and anxiety and may see changes in their diet and sleep patterns. In addition, these issues can persist into adulthood.

Bullying has the added effect of hurting kids academically. Victims of bullying are more likely to miss, skip or drop out of school.

There are consequences for the perpetrators as well. Bullies are more likely to get into fights, abuse alcohol, be sexually promiscuous in their youth, become domestic abusers and have criminal records.

“It’s cliche to say (bullying) is a rite of passage,” said Grant County Education Service District Superintendent Robert Waltenburg. “But in today’s world, we’re trying to change those norms, to change those rites of passage.”

Grant Union Principal Ryan Gerry said the school tries to combat bullying by teaching students what it is, how to spot it, and where and how to report it when it happens. The school has harassment/bullying report forms available to all students and staff.

Gerry said addressing bullying in school is essential to a healthy, safe learning environment. But what is potentially even more essential is what parents and community members teach students about how to properly treat each other, whether in person or on social media.

“Unfortunately,” Gerry said, “when something like this occurs, it truly puts into perspective the value of treating others the way you want to be treated and being kind to one another.”

Waltenburg said bullying is a learned behavior, one that kids can pick up by taking cues from society and their communities.

“A lot of times,” Waltenburg said, “kids just don’t realize the impact of their actions.”

Gerry said he did not consider the vandalism to Radinovich’s parking space an act of bullying because it was not part of a pattern of behavior repeated over time. Instead, it was more a single targeted incident of nastiness.

Body shaming

Body shaming, or the act of mocking a person’s physical appearance, can lead to severe depression, especially when people feel their body can not meet social standards.

Given that both sides of her family are on the heavier side, Radinovich said that she expected to grow up to be full-figured. But she’s always been popular in school, and people never attacked her about her body before now.

“I’ve always been a good person,” Radinovich said, “and my personality has spoken more than my body.”

Nonetheless, Radinovich said, she was self-conscious about her weight and was worried about how others viewed her.

Lately, she said, she had turned the corner on those feelings and was beginning to accept and love herself.

But when she pulled into her parking spot early last month and saw the hurtful graffiti, those old insecurities about her weight and self-image came back with renewed force.

“Seeing that kind of damaged me,” Radinovich said, “because it made me feel like that’s how people see me, and that’s the only way people see me.”

Hitting close to home

Radinovich said the graffiti story took a “huge plot twist” when she found out the students who defaced the parking spot were close friends of hers, people she had vouched for in the weeks after the incident.

Radinovich said some people were suspicious and thought that one person in the group could have graffitied the parking spot, but she consistently stood by that person.

According to Radinovich, she and one person from the group had been having “prank wars,” and the graffiti on the parking spot was intended to be funny and a comeback for a prank she had played on that person.

Radinovich said that while the students were trying to play a prank, they did not think through the full impact of what they were doing. Moreover, she added, the group did not come clean after the incident, which she said was the worst thing they could have done.

After Radinovich’s Facebook post about the ugly incident — which garnered upwards of 100 shares and reposts — friends and fellow students painted over the ugly slur in red with a new message.

This one said, “Beautiful. We love you.”

Gerry declined to discuss potential consequences for the individuals involved in the incident due to privacy concerns, but he said this is something the students would have to learn and grow from.

Radinovich had some words for them as well.

“For everybody that was involved in this,” she said, “I just want the best for them. I hope they succeed, and I hope they grow.”