The sea of orange shirts at Salem School on Oct. 19 was more than a colorful observance of the fall season. Faculty, staff and students from kindergarten through eighth grade were decked out in creamsicle and pumpkin tones for Unity Day, a national event designed to bring people together against bullying.

Unity Day was started in 2011 by Minnesota-based PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center as part of National Bullying Prevention Month. Every year on the third Wednesday of October, participants wear the color orange, a bright color associated not only with autumn but also with safety, to show solidarity with people who had been bullied.

Assistant Principal Kim Fentress said she learned a lot about successful anti-bullying programs when she taught at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Middletown. After a student there had been bullied so much that she stopped going to school, classmates created the Ram Pride Patrol, which empowers them to combat mean behavior. Eight years later, the program has expanded to more than 500 kids at the middle school and Pride Patrols at some of the elementary schools in the district.

“This group of five kids came together and said, ‘We can do something about this as students,’” she said. “You will see children ... intervening and really stopping the mean behavior before it becomes bullying.”

Unity Day celebrations started shortly thereafter, and she said the programming gave her a different perspective on how to address bullying and mean behavior and then teach the difference to her students.

To start the day, Salem students gathered in the gym by age group to watch anti-bullying videos created by the Middletown students, some of which had been taught by Fentress. Both the elementary and middle school videos used examples of bullying that students had witnessed or experienced to demonstrate strategies on how to resolve them, like ignoring the bully, befriending the victim, or providing strength in numbers.

Parents attending the school’s “Unity in the Community” session in the library also watched the videos with Fentress and school social worker Tonya Wenke. The discussion was set up so parents could use the same vocabulary when talking to their kids about bullying and mean behavior at home. One example they discussed was the difference between being bystanders and being “upstanders,” people who stand up for themselves or others when faced with a problem like bullying.

“I think that the message that parents have been giving over the years, and I’ve been giving it too, is to stay out of it,” Wenke said. “But there’s actually detrimental effects for a kid watching something going on like that and staying out of it.”

She said that intervening in a positive way empowers the kids and gives them confidence to make a difference.

Other Unity Day activities were tailored specifically to each age group, including lessons on social media use and cyberbullying for the middle school students. Wenke demonstrated the “Torn Heart” activity in the parent session, in which she read a story about a boy’s day at school and Fentress ripped off pieces of a paper heart for every mean thing said or done to him during the day. Students could try to tape the pieces of the heart together at the end, but there are still cracks left behind by the mean behavior, so they reread the story to find ways to intervene at each mean behavior.

The day concluded with all students joining to create a giant human and paper chain outside on the track. Fentress said she hopes to eventually start a group like the Pride Patrol at Salem School in the spring or next fall.

a.hutchinson@theday.com