As a self-proclaimed activist, a Howard County teenager is speaking out to urge students to overcome anxiety and immediately report bullying.
“You have to make noise and not sit by and let it happen,” said Antonia Wolff, the mother of Ally Wolff, 17, an 11th-grader at the Homewood Center in Ellicott City, who was bullied for years.
“Her solution is that you have to speak out against it ? She was shy and ashamed.”
Ally was bullied at Northfield Elementary and Dunloggin Middle schools and, as a result, was placed at Homewood, an alternative public school for students who need extra help and guidance, Wolff said.
Students would call Ally names, place objects in her way to trip her and pass her mean notes. She even lost some friends in the process, her mother said.
“I care, because I don?t want other kids to suffer,” said Ally.
“If you don?t do anything to stop it, you?re just as wrong.”
She said she is on a mission to spread the word to stop bullying, and even was featured recently on WMAR Channel 2 News.
Ally hasn?t decided how to spread her message, but she wants to visit schools and talk to students.
Wolff said she and her daughter had, for the most part, been ignored by Ally?s teachers when she was growing up, even as the teasing and harassing continued.
Ally said the harassment happened all around including at lunch, recess and during assemblies.
In preparation for her role as an upcoming activist, Ally said she?s taking a drama class and will be in a production this spring.
Ally has several amazing talents and is especially skilled in numbers and math, her mother said.
She can name the day of the week for any given calendar date back to 1991 and until 2016.
She also has an incredible recollection for celebrity birthdays and knows obscure facts like how old the president was in 1999, Wolff said.
“I don?t know how helpful this will be,” Ally said. “But it might draw more attention to me and have more people listen.”
