I'm a bit confused on which of two points you are trying to make. I too was bullied at school. There was no code of conduct at my school. I too was told that I

I'm a bit confused on which of two points you are trying to make. I too was bullied at school. There was no code of conduct at my school. I too was told that I had to ignore bullies. But I cannot for the life of me believe that making those children who bullied me attest to a code of conduct would have stopped the bullying. Nor can I believe that enforcement by teachers would have increased; the behavior would already have been considered criminal if we were adults so the reason it was ignored was something else. Zero tolerance policies in schools exist because the enforcement problem is so hard to solve. One person's word against another. I don't see a code of conduct and think to myself, "Oh, good. There won't be any jerks here." I just think, "Hmm, I wonder if they have been having problems... do I want to be here?"