Grandma Rose, one of the main characters from Simon's Hook, was played by the book's author, Karen Gedig Burnett, who showed up in her fishing gear to speak about bullies and how to avoid getting "hooked" by life's bait--taunting and name-calling.

"The main idea behind the assembly is to reinforce with the students the lessons they learned on how to respond to bullying behavior without reacting in a violent way," says first-grade teacher Lisa D'Souza. "The fishing hook is an analogy for taking the bait from a bully and giving them the pleasure of seeing you get upset."

The March 20 event came together as part of the elementary school's involvement with Project Cornerstone. It was organized by Willow Glen resident and founder of ABC Parents Felecia Mulvany.

Three years ago, when Mulvany's first-grader was bullied at school, she founded the parent group.

D'Souza's classroom was ground zero for the project.

"I taught Felecia's son, so she decided to test the project in my classroom," D'Souza says. "She felt comfortable with my class because she knew me and most of the kids."

At the time the project only had a handful of parent volunteers teaching in the classrooms. Now, the whole school has incorporated the concept into its classroom.

Once a month the ABC Parents volunteer in every classroom and read a book with a lesson plan that focuses on friendship, conflict resolution and issues that involve bullying.

"ABC Parents and Project Cornerstone have contributed to the overall climate at the school," says D'Souza, who has taught at the elementary school for nine years. "All the kids feel safe coming to teachers if they need to talk to someone."

The project has also helped in teaching social awareness.

In school, there is so much more academic pressure on the teachers that there's no time to teach these important life lessons, Mulvany says.

Test scores are linked to a school's financial well-being, which causes pressure as well, she says.

"We have to focus a certain amount of time and attention to teach kids to learn these things in order to help them become well-rounded," Mulvany says.

The results of this added attention are evident.

"You see the difference on the playground," Mulvany says. "The kids help the adults more and realize that their words and actions affect others."

This homegrown program was adopted by Project Cornerstone in September 2004. It now touches the lives of more than 12,000 students across the county every month, Mulvany says.

"One of the key things that children need while growing up is three other adults that are positive role models besides their parents," Mulvany says. "Kids are really excited to see us at school. It's so good for their self-esteem because they know we do this because we care about them."

In turn the children perform better academically and socially, she says.

"Hopefully, this program will also help kids get into college," Mulvany says. "Hopefully, they become better adults and role models of their own."

Mulvany continues to promote the project's importance schoolwide. The Simon's Hook story about bullying inspired her to convert the school's multipurpose room into an ocean.

She and a few volunteers started painting the cafeteria a turquoise color two weeks ago to set the mood.

She asked teachers in each grade to have their students make fish for the underwater world scene. Children created cutout forms for mobiles, decorating them with watercolors.

"We purposely did not tell the teachers what kind of fish to make because we wanted the students to pick the type they wanted," Mulvany says.

Some of the fifth-graders worked together to make one large fish rather than the small fish on the mobiles, Mulvany says.

The multipurpose room-turned-makeshift ocean was filled that day with colorful tissue-covered starfish, horsefish, puffers, flying manta rays and even a psychedelic octopus.

"The fish reflect the complexity of the diversity at Willow Glen Elementary," Mulvany says.

Respect for this diversity was a key issue in changing the campus climate as well as student behavior, D'Souza says.

"Bullying has become a major issue in general, and parents are concerned about their children," D'Souza says. "But rather than protect just their child from bullying, parents wanted to find a way to do the same for the rest of the children."

The Project Cornerstone and ABC Parents' lessons have helped students find ways to solve these problems.

According to Grandma Rose, students can avoid getting "hooked" by a bully by doing one of five things; do little, agree with the bully, distract the bully by changing the subject, laugh and make a joke about what the bully is trying to tease you about, and walk, or, in the case of a fish, swim away.

"It helps kids take ownership and responsibility for their behavior," D'Souza says.

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