What 80,000 Students Shared
I was interviewed for this article which outlines the results from a YouthTruth survey of 80,000 students.
80,000 Kids Just Replied to a Survey About Bullying.
Here’s What Surprised Their Educators Most
Everyone here is either bullying someone or being bullied. The teachers say if you have a problem, go see them — but they do nothing about it.”
“They say they have a zero tolerance for bullying which is A COMPLETE LIE. People are bullied, they try to get help, and then they get NO HELP and continue to get bullied.”
“I think that the school should be more controlling on cyber-bullying. They are not aware that their students are being bullied or harassed on social media.”
“I wish that the person who sent me those messages knew how much that hurt, and that I would go to sleep crying ... and be so tired at school because of crying at night.”
These are four of thousands of anonymous comments from students about bullying in their schools. The pain and frustration they describe are hard to take — but in some school districts, what the students are experiencing is very different from what their teachers and principals think is going on.
That’s why, in conjunction with National Bullying Prevention Month this October, a nonprofit called YouthTruth released data gathered from 80,000 students in 21 states between the fall of 2012 and the spring of 2015. Their schools, which pay YouthTruth to conduct candid, anonymous surveys of students, are split among urban, suburban and rural areas, are varied in wealth and size, and span the country from the East to West coasts, the South and the Midwest.
