Thank you for a great response...

...and for sharing your own personal situation back in high school with us, Agent. If the problem of bullying in middle and high school is to be properly addressed, we need to eliminate the myth that most of these bullies are typical drug-selling punks that hate being in school and that the teachers can't wait to get rid of. There are some bullies like that, of course, and they shouldn't be forced to be in these schools in the first place. However, a large proportion of bullies in the school are nothing like that stereotype. They are often students who get very good grades, are very athletically inclined and excell in one of the school's sports teams, are frequently elected to political positions within the student body (e.g., class president), and they are often just as popular with the teachers as they are with their fellow students. Yet they tend to be every bit as vicious and sadistic towards the unpopular students who are unfortunate enough to become their targets as are the genuine punks who do not want to be there. Social popularity is a form of power, and it can corrupt someone's values just as readily as does political and economic power. As I said in my initial post in this thread, students who get good grades, have high positions in the student body, are great athletes who help put the school in the local news on a regular basis, and are good pals with the teachers and security guards in addition to most of the students are not kids whom the school staff will be in any hurry to discipline or kick out of the school, especially if their targets are students who dress differently because of their individuality, have unremarkable grades and athletic ability, and who are annoying rather than endearing to the teachers due possibly to their misguided attempts to get some of the attention that they aren't getting from their peers. In my experience, the guidance counselors are much more likely to put the latter targets of bullies under psychological and sociological analysis than they are the former type of popular and academically and/or athletically talented students who all too often become bullies.