TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- It happens in middle schools and high schools across the community. In hallways. In classrooms. On the bus.
Students, mostly girls, sexually harassed by peers. Sometimes it stops at name-calling -- girls being called a "slut" or a "ho."
But it often escalates.
A Chaparral Middle School student poked a girl in the nipple while walking in from lunch.
When asked about it, he said he did it, but "I didn't think it would be a big deal." He was suspended.
At Challenger Middle School, a boy grabbed a girl by the hair during class and demanded oral sex. He said he'd been egged on by another boy.
Also at Challenger, a campus monitor saw a boy slap a girl on the behind during lunch.
The boy said it was part of a game called "slap-ass Friday." Both boys were suspended.
A database of 3,529 crimes on Tucson Unified School District campuses in the last school year shows that school officers responded to 77 sexual-related incidents. Not included in the database created by the Arizona Daily Star were another 74 cases of sexual misconduct on school buses.
There were 46 student referrals for sexual harassment in the Sunnyside Unified School District out of 1,977 referrals for campus violations.
The Vail School District reported 15 cases of sexual harassment, while the Catalina Foothills School District reported six, ranging from sexual harassment to indecent exposure at its campuses. Other districts did not break out sexual harassment cases.
Many students interviewed about sexual harassment on campus said they believe incidents are underreported.
"Some girls have low self-esteem and are embarrassed to say anything or to stand up for someone else," said Renee Valencia, 17.
Sexual harassment at school happens at surprisingly young ages.
A case of student-to-student sexual harassment was reported last year at Sunrise Drive Elementary School, in the Catalina Foothills district, and school officers responded to several elementary schools in TUSD for sex-related offenses.
In Vail, there were more reports of sexual harassment at middle schools than at high schools.
A 1993 report, "Hostile Hallways," conducted with funding from the American Association of University Women, surveyed more than 1,600 students in the eighth through 11th grades and found 83 percent of girls reported experiencing sexual harassment in their public schools, with 30 percent describing such behaviors as happening "often."
More recently, researchers from the University of Southern Maine published a study in the journal Sex Roles in July 2008. It indicated 35 percent of 522 students ages 11 to 18 reported they had experienced some form of sexual harassment.
"We have a lot of sexual violence going on in school, and it's happening at younger and younger ages," said Nan Stein, a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women.
Stein specializes in the subject and has written a book on it. "It impedes equity in school, and it impedes achievement. If you're worried about being sexually assaulted in school, you're not going to be thinking too much about your course work."
But the bulk of the reports reviewed by the Star provide a glimpse into a world in which teens are blowing past the bounds of appropriate interaction.
"Guys believe you can't harass the willing," said 17-year-old Carlos Galvez, a senior at Sunnyside High School.
"When guys are going through puberty, sex is on the mind all the time ... But most will grow out of it," he said, acknowledging that young men do not have the right to touch a girl because of their hormonal urges.
School harassment is tough to combat when schools are cutting back on costs.
Local law-enforcement agencies have pulled officers out of schools in the face of budget challenges. TUSD, the largest district in the Tucson area, with 105 schools, has nine school safety officers assigned to high schools.
No officers are assigned to middle schools -- a problem because it's in middle school when much of the bad behavior starts. That's also when parents start pulling their kids from TUSD's public schools, too, because of safety concerns.
"We would prefer to have a presence in the middle schools, and we would prefer to have the staff that would allow us to be more proactive," said Bud Waters, the commander of the TUSD school safety department.
With his staff handling 40 phone calls every day, he said, heading off harassment and other types of misbehavior often falls to administrators.
Jim Fish, TUSD assistant superintendent for middle schools, has told all of his principals to take a preventive approach to sexual harassment.
"You need to sit down with kids and be clear about what is acceptable and what is not," he said. "We make too many assumptions about what kids should know."
A principal for 21 years at middle and high schools, Fish said big assemblies weren't effective. The kids laughed. Or they wouldn't ask questions. But in small groups, a dialogue would start.
Kids would tell him: "You're from a different generation. Girls don't mind. They know we're just playing."
Fish said they start coming around when he asks whether it would be OK if he patted them on the rear. They usually answer that he doesn't have the right to touch them -- and that's a starting point for a conversation.
"As adults, we're afraid to talk about these topics with kids because they're sensitive topics. But I think parents expect administrators to have these kinds of discussions."
Sunnyside High School counselor Sylvia Loustaunau said she believes sexual harassment is underreported among boys, also.
Loustaunau said she tells students to speak up for themselves.
"For some, it may take awhile to build the confidence to do it, even among the outspoken students. Sexual harassment can scare a person and make them feel small. It can be so insidious," said Loustaunau, who put together a PowerPoint presentation for freshmen using scenarios students say happened to them on campus.
Manuel L. Diaz, Sunnyside High campus security monitor, has worked for the district for 17 years. He said students need to realize that sexual harassment is serious.
"I do see a lack of respect on both the parts of gentlemen and women toward each other," he said. "All of us need to work on this."
