SHOWS FOR YOUNGSTERS AND THEIR PARENTS TOO : Teen-age girl stands up to sexual harassment in ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

You’re a high school sophomore. You haven’t even been on a date yet. But suddenly your classmates are looking at you funny. Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they say rude things. Then you hear that there’s a stall in the boys’ bathroom covered with graffiti, and it’s all about you. You don’t understand. You haven’t done anything . And no one, not the school counselor or the principal, will help you.

For Minnesotan Katy Lyle, that scenario was all too real.

This week’s “ABC Afterschool Special: Boys Will Be Boys” is loosely based on Lyle’s story. In the special, Ali Cooper (Ami Dolenz) eventually fights back, brings an awareness of sexual harassment to her school and community and, like Katy, changes laws.

In “Boys Will Be Boys,” Ali finally reaches a breaking point and confesses to her parents (Joan Van Ark and Larry Wilcox) what’s been happening to her at school. When they try to take action, her parents find the school’s administration as unhelpful as Ali does.

The kind of situation depicted in the special has existed for a long time, says executive producer David J. Eagle (“Kids Killing Kids”), hence the title (and a counselor’s comment in the show) of “Boys Will Be Boys.” “No one really addressed it until some very brave teen-age girls actually came out,” Eagle says.

Several girls, three in California and two in Minnesota (one was Katy), spoke out about the harassment they had been facing.

“It’s important to show kids it’s OK to fight back and just because you’re a kid, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have any rights,” says Dolenz, 25, from her San Fernando Valley home. “Most people think sexual harassment only happens in the office, but it happens in school.”

Dolenz stresses that victims must let their parents know what’s happening. Embarrassed, Ali at first tries to handle the situation herself: She not only talks to the administration, she also tries to clean the graffiti off, with her brother’s help.

Eventually, through persistence and good advice from her parents and a therapist, she gets results.

“It’s actually a very sad story turned into a triumphant one,” Dolenz says. “Her life could have been destroyed. So much of her childhood was taken away, in those two years of harassment.”

“It was a snowball effect,” Eagle adds. “No one really knows how these things get started. Someone writes something on the wall, it starts to spill over with other kids saying ‘Maybe, you never know . . . ‘ and then it becomes almost a mass hysteria.”

For Eagle, the show has two very important points: “To show other teen-age girls that they don’t have to take that kind of behavior from boys or anyone else. The second aspect is to show boys just how hurtful that ‘fun, cool’ behavior can be and that writing something nasty is just plain hurtful.”

While Dolenz hopes that the show will open the eyes of teen-agers and their parents to prevalent, disturbing and unacceptable behavior, Eagle says, realistically, “This show isn’t going to put a stop to sexual harassment, but it will let girls know that they did nothing to deserve it and that one girl who took action ultimately affected the lives of thousands of other boys and girls. Directly and indirectly her reaction helped many.”

The cast not only includes Van Ark (who also directed) as Ali’s mother but also Richard Karn (“Home Improvement”) as a sympathetic teacher, Dorothy Lyman (“Mama’s Family”) as the school counselor and singer Jeremy Jordan as one of the harassing boys.

“ABC Afterschool Special: Boys Will Be Boys” airs at 3 p.m. on ABC. For ages 9 and up.