Students Speak Up: Bullying is Widespread in California Schools

Recently updated data on student reports of bullying and harassment in California schools suggest that bullying is an issue of widespread concern in the Golden State. The data come from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a survey of students developed and administered by WestEd for the California Department of Education (CDE). Forty-two percent of 7th graders in California reported being bullied or harassed at school in the past year. Percentages were lower among 9th and 11th graders; 35% of 9th graders and 28% of 11th graders reported being bullied. Student reports of bullying and harassment are available at the school district and county level, providing a local lens on an issue of statewide concern and focus. Data also are available at the state level.

To tackle this issue, the U.S. Department of Justice recently coordinated a Bay Area “Stop Bullying” Summit in San Francisco with local officials. Using data from kidsdata.org, this summit sought to bring more attention to the prevalence of bullying and harassment in California. Moreover the conference highlighted bullying prevention efforts being utilized around the Bay Area. Bullying and harassment are important issues and many Californians including schools, parents, youth, and governmental officials are stepping up to promote bullying prevention and student safety in schools.

Have you checked out the amount of student-reported bullying in your area? What are people and schools in your community doing to prevent bullying?

Posted by Roselyn Thomas

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2012 at 9:16 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.