It’s hard to imagine that a tragedy like the January suicide of a 15-year-old South Hadley girl, a result of torment by a group of teenage bullies at her high school, could touch the close-knit community of Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps it wouldn’t happen here, where children so often see the same faces in school hallways from kindergarten through eighth grade, growing close and forging friendships long before they set off to tackle the mini-melting pot that is the regional high school.

But state representatives believe that bullying — and all the consequences that come with it — could happen anywhere, and that measures must be taken by all to make sure that no child has to face the same torment that South Hadley’s Phoebe Prince saw daily. Last week, the Massachusetts House passed a comprehensive anti-bullying bill, a bill that some consider a stronger version of similar legislation passed this month by the Senate. The bill aims to protect children from bullying, in part by requiring that incidents are reported to school officials, and requiring that school employees undergo training to identify and respond to bullying incidents.

Chilmark police chief Brian Cioffi referenced the suicide in an interview earlier this month as a warning to the community that the problem is real, and that anyone is susceptible to it. “[Bullying] has taken the life of a person not long ago, a 15-year-old girl, in the state of Massachusetts,” he said. “It’s becoming a problem and it’s rising.”

School superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss agreed. “We are not immune to these things,” he said of the Island community. But he feels that the new legislation will help. “There are two provisions which will have an impact for us,” he said. “One is the training of school staff. And it’s not just the teachers, it’s all school staff. And the second piece is the reporting and documentation piece. Getting all that data and reporting it to the state.”

The training mandate will not likely be funded by the state, but Dr. Weiss said that it will be well worth the spending if it means keeping kids safe. “We would reallocate our resources as we do lots of times here,” he said, if no funding comes through. “This is an important topic . . . training our people to understand and deal with and work with students on cyberbullying is really something that we should be doing, and we’ll find a way to make it happen.”

Oak Bluffs School vice principal Jennifer Arnold said that the new legislation will also help to inform the rest of the community about the existence of the problem. “I think it’s always good to have folks be aware of these potentials, because there is a danger to children’s self-esteem. I like to promote a kind school environment where kids can feel safe,” she said. “If we’re saying that about schools, we hope it would extend to the community at large.”

The anti-bullying bill defines bullying as an “intentional gesture or . . . written, verbal, or physical act or threat,” which causes harm or fear of harm to a child. And in recent years, many social networking sites have exposed kids to a new form of harassment: cyberbullying.

“Parents need to be careful about their kids using social networking pages, because sometimes kids might post things that are not kind,” said Ms. Arnold.

Regional high school guidance director Michael McCarthy said that as Facebook has become more and more popular, some kids have also learned ways to manipulate the medium as a forum for bullying. “We’ve had issues with kids putting up fake Facebook accounts on other kids,” he said in an interview earlier this month. “Kids are using it in a way to . . . get negative aspects out about a kid, or create something to humiliate a kid.”

But kids are risk-takers, said Mr. McCarthy. “They put stuff out there sometimes even though they know they probably shouldn’t do it,” he said. And then it’s time for the school to intervene.

Mr. McCarthy said that whenever an incident of cyberbullying is discovered, school workers will talk to the students involved. “And it’s an ongoing dialogue with a lot of kids in the school. At peer outreach meetings, we talk about it and discuss it.” He added that there have been occasions when school officials had to insist that fake Web sites be removed from the Facebook site.

Chief Cioffi pointed out another recent example of cyberbullying that took the form of an online chat between several Island high school students. In a transcript of the chat, several students were recorded threatening harm to a student who the group believed to have given information to parents or authorities that led to another student’s arrest. And though the subject of the threats was not involved in the online conversation, it could still be construed as bullying.

“I think that kids are already testing the waters, and they’re looking to us to help them along with these things,” said Ms. Arnold, adding that kids need to be more careful about how they present themselves online. “A lot of times they might say things that they don’t realize would have a consequence. I think that’s what we need to teach them. And that once you put it out there, it’s out there for everybody to reference. It’s a pretty permanent thing.”

The training courses for identifying incidents of bullying are expected to take effect in the 2011-2012 school year, but Ms. Arnold said that school workers need not wait until then to take action, and parents can get involved too. Ironically, she said, a good place to start is the internet.

“The National Crime Prevention Council [Web site] has some good information on explaining what cyberbullying is, and they have a good page that says what parents can do,” she said.

And as for Facebook and other social networking sites that seem all too often to breed bad behavior, Ms. Arnold said that the best measure against misuse is for parents to familiarize themselves with the sites. “I’m talking about technology in general,” she said. “We can bemoan it, but it’s here to stay, and we need to figure out a way to work with it so that we can teach our children how to use it.”

For more information about bullying and cyberbullying, visit the National Crime Prevention Council Web site at ncpc.org.