A heartfelt cheer goes to 15-year-old Stella Rotundo for a very courageous stand she took this week in the name of justice.

Stella, who just completed her freshman year at Butler High School, stood before the Butler school board to say their anti-bullying program isn't working. Stella said she's been on the receiving end of daily harassment and she's tired of it.

For Stella to reveal her painful experience must have taken an incredible amount of strength — nearly as much as it takes to withstand the verbal, emotional and physical taunts from misbehaving classmates. Add to that the online harassment via social media, and the torment can become incessant.

It's not as if the school is doing nothing. Superintendent Mike Strutt explained there were disciplinary actions taken against Stella's tormenters, but the punishments were not disclosed to other students because of privacy concerns. But that's immaterial to Stella because the harassment apparently continued.

Strutt is to be applauded for acknowledging the school can do more to stop bullying and for pledging to do more. His sensitive response to Stella's complaint sets an appropriate tone for a serious subject.

Teenage children can be cruel, selfish and insensitive. They can also be compassionate, respectful and, at times, even heroic. Stella's act was nothing less than heroic. Perhaps her courage can inspire a little more evidence of compassion and respect in some of her peers.

One of Kimberly Fair's boarders says she's calling her place a bed and breakfast now. State regulators say it's more like a kennel. Whatever you call it, Kim's Caring Cabin in Clearfield Township is not a personal care home — it doesn't have a state license for personal care and it's not likely to get one anytime soon, since the state has declared it unfit for human habitation.The state Department of Welfare last week ordered the business closed and conducted an emergency relocation of 15 residents. That doesn't happen very often, maybe seven shutdowns/relocations a year among the 1,300 licensed personal care homes in Pennsylvania, according to the Welfare Department's Bureau of Human Services Licensing.Nobody knows how many unlicensed homes are operating illegally. Fair had moved her Kimberly Fair Boarding and Care Home out of Gibsonia earlier this year after the state ruled it noncompliant with state regulations.The Butler County Area Agency on Aging, acting on an anonymous tip, popped in for an unannounced visit to the unlicensed home and found atrocious conditions — very dirty and cluttered, with animals including birds and a boa constrictor in the house and their droppings on the floor. AAA Administrator Beth Herold said the residents seemed lethargic and some of their medications were missing.These conditions could be construed as symptoms of neglect — indications the business is not honoring its commitment to provide the services for which its residents paid — and are mandatory under Chapter 2600 of the Pennsylvania Code, the section of state law dealing specifically with personal care homes.To put it plainly, the company appears to be stealing from its residents — and, if any residents are paying with federal Supplemental Security Income, then the business is stealing from the federal government, too.Golden agers deserve better.

Cheers to four Butler County corrections officers who were credited last week by the county prison board with saving inmates from serious injury in two incidents on the same day.Capt. Dave Williams on March 28 broke the fall of an inmate who dropped off the railing of the mezzanine level of a housing pod.Warden Rick Shaffer said the inmate was being uncooperative, refusing to see his counselor. When the inmate launched himself backward off the second-level railing, Williams positioned himself to block the man’s fall. According to Shaffer, the inmate’s head would have hit the prison’s cement floor had it not struck Williams’ arm first.Later that day, officers Dom Ravotti, Doug Meyer and Randy Russell found an inmate unconscious, overdosed on heroin he’d evidently smuggled into prison.Ravotti held an air bag to the unconscious inmate while the officers took him from his cell to an ambulance crew.The county prison board gave the officers letters of commendation.All in a day’s work.