COEUR d'ALENE - Stephen Wessler told attendees at the Kroc Center on Wednesday night that his efforts to combat bullying were inspired during a case he worked on as a state prosecutor, involving a ninth-grade gay student.

The boy had been bullied throughout the school year by several other students. Hateful speech quickly evolved into physical harassment. One day, the bullies followed the boy home from school, beat him and held him over a third story balcony saying next time they saw him they would drop him over the edge.

"When something like that happens everyone focuses on the last awful event," Wessler said. "But everybody looks in the wrong places. That's the end, not the beginning."

The "beginning," according to Wessler, is hateful language that becomes normalized in a school environment when no one stands up against it. When that occurs, the behavior escalates and can become much more severe.

During his work with the Coeur d'Alene School District, Wessler said the majority of the hateful speech he heard about came from students who were attempting to make a joke.

"This is a good thing," Wessler said. "It shows that there's a large gap between the intent of the student and the impact of those jokes."

To reduce the incidents of language becoming normalized, Wessler said schools must go beyond training their staff and implementing sufficient disciplinary practices.

"Almost all of this is occurring outside of the earsight of adults," Wessler said. "So you'll run into a ceiling if you don't start empowering students with a solution."

This week, Wessler has been working with students and faculty on such a solution. His program for prevention has two components.

One is creating "Respect Teams" of students who engage their schools in projects that promote a respectful environment. The other involves training community members to lead workshops that give students strategies and skills to prevent bullying.

"You'll see results quickly," Wessler said. "By year four, every high school student will have received training, and at some point the culture will shift."

After his speech, Wessler gave attendees the opportunity to ask questions or give comments. One woman spoke of how her son had been bullied for years. The bullying culminated with a physical altercation and the woman's son being suspended for fighting.

The woman asked Wessler what a parent is supposed to tell their child when a situation gets to that point. He responded by saying that sometimes the end result of bullying is not a positive solution and that there were no easy answers he could give her.

"The most effective way to avoid those situations is to change the culture in our schools," Wessler said.

Another man asked what the community could do to prevent the subject and Wessler's work with the schools from fading away.

"My experience is that with this system, it doesn't fade," Wessler said. "I've worked with schools that have had respect teams in place for two decades. The difference is the 'training a trainer' model that we've implemented. We are embedding those prevention skills within the school system."