Before the start of this next school year schools need to come up with a way to battle a problem that’s been around forever – bullying.

A law passed in May requires all state schools to develop a bullying policy by August 15th.

Many schools have been struggling with the best way to address the issue, but some schools in the Wausau School District may be able of offer some insight.

The district actually implemented its own policy back in 2004.

"Bullying is just something that can't be tolerated,” said Jeff Joyce, director of pupil services for the Wausau School District.

Wausau East High School has followed the district’s policy but has also taken their efforts to stop bullying a step further. The school has adopted a nationwide program that involves creating “safe school ambassadors.”

"You know, when an assistant principal or a principal or even a teacher walks down the hallway, there's not a lot of bullying going on, because kids are smart enough to not treat other kids that way in front of us,” said Jeff Lindell, associate principal at Wausau East. "We've trained a number of students to identify bullying and then take steps to get students away from that type of situation."

But the big question is, has it been working?

Lindell says it’s hard to gauge from an adult’s perspective but he believes there has definitely been a decrease in bullying, though the problem hasn’t entirely gone away.

"If we have the issue at all, I'd say it's a big problem,” Lindell said.

Lindell says only adding to the problem of getting schools bully-free is that a lot of bullying doesn’t happen in school, which is why he’d like to see more parents on bully patrol too.

"Facebook has brought on a whole new realm of bullying, really, in schools. It's a fine line because most of the bullying behavior happens outside of our school building so we don't really have the ability to address some of it,” Lindell said "It happens outside of the building but without fail it comes into our building."

Bullying, in or outside of school, can lead to students having a lack of motivation, depression or any other number of unwanted side effects.

School staff say if parents see their child being bullied outside of school, they should report it to the school anyway. While the school may not be able to do anything about the incident, they can refer the reports of harassment to a school police liaison officer who has the authority to take action.

The state Department of Public Instruction has come up with a model school bullying policy.

Schools can adopt that one or make up one of their own.

At the very least it has to have a bullying definition, a way for students to confidentially report bullying problems and guidelines for how staff should respond to bullying reports.

The new law also designates a Bullying Awareness Day in September.