Bullying Survey from FL Sup

We recently surveyed nearly twenty-two thousand high school students to get their perspective of the services we provide. This effort was initiated by high school principals who are interested in and working hard to improve student learning within each of their schools. The survey instrument, My Voice, has been given around the country. Our data now informs a larger data base and we have gained the perspective of a nationally administered survey that looks at high school through the eyes of students.

One of the first questions that comes to mind is how honest are students in filling out a survy like this? Interestingly, those within the industry more often then not say that students are honest in completing such instruments. Though many of those same researchers caution us to use multiple data sources before making major decisons affecting survey respondents. Right now ... we are simply reviewing the data ... looking for interesting questions and seemingly confounding or conflicting student responses ... we are looking at the results between schools, between grade levels, across gender and several other aspects but one thing jumped out at me and that was related to bullying.

While I have suspected ... no ... known that bullying was a problem in schools today- I guess I had hoped that the students would report that it was not the problem that many have said it was. However, fully thirty percent of our kids said it was a problem within our high schools. I would like to spend some time with you discussing bullying and what we can do as a system to reduce and ultimately eliminate those behaviors that our kids find offensive.

I don't intend for this thread to become a story telling session and I certainly wouldn't find it appropriate to "out" someone who either was a bully or was being picked on- there are other more appropriate channels for that. Rather I want us to talk about bullying in all its forms - so we can educate those in a position to stop it - to stop it. I hope we can discuss some ideas for raising awareness of the problem and I hope we can inspire some of our students to help us send the message that bullying should not and will not be tolerated on our campuses.