living at today :Working to make bullying a crime

CNN-In Today's Living, a father on a mission, to make sure a tragedy that struck his family, will not happen to yours. Kirk Smalley says his son lost his life to a bully.

Smalley is on a mission. There he is, an honored guest, at Oklahoma City's Western Heights High School trying to put a stop to bullying. He says, "I have to make a difference. I promised my son on Father's Day this year I'd stop this from happening to another child."

For years Smalley's son, Ty, struggled with a bully at school. When asked, "When you say he was being picked on, how was he being picked on?" Smalley replied, "Name-calling. Ty was always pretty small for his age, and he'd get shoved, pushed here and there."

His father says he was a typical kid with typical grades who took the abuse for two years. On the day Ty finally decided to push back physically he got into trouble. He was suspended from school. For Ty, it was too much to bear.

On that day, last May, he killed himself. He was 11 years old.

Smalley says, "Ultimately my son's safety rested in my hands. I was responsible for my son's safety. That's a harsh thing to say about yourself. I'm his dad, it's my job to protect him. No matter what. No matter where he was, it's my job to protect him."

But, how do you protect your child from a bully? Assistant Deputy Education Secretary Kevin Jennings was appointed by President Obama to keep kids safe at school. Ty's story could easily have been his own. Jennings says, "Like many kids I was bullied very severely when I as in junior high and high school. And the first day of 10th grade I actually refused to go back to school because I simply wasn't going to go back to a place where I was bullied every day."

Jennings organized the nation's first-ever bullying summit. But, even he admits it's a baby step.

Experts can't even agree on how to define bullying. Is it physical? Electronic? Psychological? Non-verbal? Or all of the above? Jennings says, "When might something happen? When might the federal government act and say theses are the guidelines we want to put in place, do it. It's taken us a long time to develop a bullying problem. It's going to take us some time to solve it."

There are no federal guidelines schools must follow to deal with bullying. Each school or district develops its own policies. But, Smalley is working to make bullying a crime.