About one in three Cole County teenagers say they were victims of bullying online or by cell phone in 2014, according to a recent study.
Approximately a third of Cole County's sixth-, ninth-, 10th and 11th-graders who were surveyed said they had been victims of online bullying or bullying via cell phone in 2014.
Cole County middle schools appeared to be particularly brutal bullying environments compared to high schools, according to the study of sixth-, ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders.
This data on bullying comes from the biannual Missouri Student Survey, administered by the Missouri Behavioral Health Epidemiology Workgroup (MBHEW) under the Missouri Department of Mental Health.
Conducted in even-numbered years, the survey measures on a county and state level attitudes and behaviors of students grades six through 12 regarding substance use, mental health, perceptions of their school environments and other behaviors that affect public health and safety.
The News Tribune analyzed bullying data collected from Cole County by accessing it through MBHEW's data querying site (dmh.mo.gov/seow/Default.aspx).
The data dates from 2006 to 2014, the latest year available, although not every question regarding bullying was asked of students every year. The survey has evolved over time with changing technologies and definitions of bullying to encompass emergent threats like online bullying and bullying via cell phones.
The survey defined a victim of online bullying or bullying via cell phone as someone who had something posted online or a text sent that was embarrassing or hurtful.
What does the Cole County data tell us?
It is impossible to make school-by-school conclusions based on the publicly-available MBHEW data alone, so all results reflect Cole County as a whole.
According to the survey of Cole County students:
• More than 78 percent of sixth-graders said they had been victims of emotional bullying (defined by the survey as being made fun of) within the past three months, as opposed to less than half of 12th-graders.
• Nearly half of all sixth-graders in Cole County reported being physically bullied in the past three months, compared to 10 percent of 12th-graders. The survey defined physical bullying as being hit, pushed or shoved in a situation that was not "just fooling around" or horseplay.
• Female students were more than twice as likely as male students to say they were victims of online bullying or bullying via cell phone.
• White students more frequently identified themselves as victims of online bullying or bullying via cell phone than black students. In previous years, the numbers were much more closely aligned.
• Male students more frequently identified themselves as victims of physical bullying in the past three months than female students.
• Black students more frequently said they were victims of physical bullying than white students.
The survey also noted race and gender were factors when it came to the perpetrators.
Female students were more than twice as likely as male students to admit being online bullies or bullies via cell phone.
Inversely, male students were more than twice as likely as female students to being physical bullies.
Black students were significantly more likely to say they were physical bullies over white students.
What about bullying in Jefferson City schools?
Dawn Berhorst, assistant to the Jefferson City superintendent, department of student information, planning and assessment, confirmed for the News Tribune that "(a) sampling of students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Jefferson City High School participated in the (2014) survey. We did not administer to full grade levels or schools."
Data shared by the Jefferson City public school district shows 328 students at the two schools responded to the survey.
Among the findings:
• 32 percent said someone had posted something online or sent a text that embarrassed or hurt them in the past three months.
• 37.6 percent said they had been bullied on school property in the past 12 months.
• 20.2 percent said they had posted something online or sent a text that might embarrass or hurt another student in the past three months.
What can be done?
Victims of bullying can suffer from physical and emotional injury, but bullies themselves do not escape from a cycle of violence unharmed either.
Data suggests that those who bully are much more likely to be or have been victims of bullying themselves, a conclusion supported by a BHEW bulletin from April 2013 (dmh.mo.gov/docs/ada/progs/mobhew/mobhewbrief201304.pdf). That bulletin noted statewide, according to the 2012 Missouri Student Survey, 83 percent of bullies reported being victims of bullying, compared to 47 percent of those students who did not report being bullies.
According to the 2012 data, bullies are twice as likely as non-bullies to use cigarettes, more than 21/2 times as likely to use alcohol or marijuana and three times more likely to use inhalants.
Bullies are also twice as likely as non-bullies to seriously consider taking their own life and more than twice as likely to engage in self-harm, make a plan to attempt to take their own life and report actually attempting to take their own life.
For victims trying to deal with bullies, avoiding the cycle of violence is key.
"Students who bully others are often looking for a reaction, and when they don't get the reaction they are looking for, the situation de-escalates," said Anna McMillen, a counselor at Jefferson City High School.
"I would encourage a student to say something like, "You need to leave me alone' or "Stop bothering me.' But when a victim retaliates by trash-talking or getting physical, then unfortunately both parties can end up being implicated," McMillen said.
What can parents and guardians do?
On the family and household level, there are options for parents and guardians to address bullying that their children have possibly either been victims or perpetrators of.
Lisa Bleich, a sixth-grade counselor at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Jefferson City, says that it is important for parents and guardians to know how to start a conversation on bullying, and to monitor their children's social media habits.
"When I work with kids, I try to draw out information about what is happening by asking questions," Bleich said.
With her own children, Bleich said it was helpful to isolate them in a car while she was driving, allowing her children the comfort of not looking directly at her when she spoke.
"Parents are in a difficult situation because many times kids won't reveal to them what is happening and what their own role is in the situation. I find that much of what happens begins on social media," Bleich said.
"I encourage parents to have a cut-off time for technology each night, examine texts, stay aware of the apps that kids are using, be willing to take the phones (and) tablets away," Bleich said.
Counselor Anna McMillen at Jefferson City High School has a sort of checklist of questions to help parents and guardians.
"If you feel that your child is being bullied, the first thing you need to do is get details from your child on what exactly occurred. Some helpful questions to ask would be:
• When and where did the bullying take place?
• Has this been going on for a while or was it a one-time incident?
• Is bullying happening at school or is it on social media or other avenues?
"Before calling the school, it is important to get the whole story," McMillen said.
McMillen also recommended a website, www.thebullyproject.com, which has some resources for students and parents or guardians.
Bullying outside of school
For bullying that happens outside of school, over which school administrators have limited options to deal with, documentation is important, especially when it comes to cyber-bullying, McMillen said.
"Documenting incidents and reporting them right away is very helpful to both school staff or police as they investigate. When cyber-bullying occurs, students are encouraged to block the person making rude comments or remove themselves entirely from certain apps or platforms that are conducive to bullying behavior. ... It is a lot harder to go back and look at incidents that happened in previous weeks or months if they were not documented at the time," McMillen said.
Most bullying behaviors appear to decrease drastically as students age and pass through high school, although some behaviors may temporarily spike as students make the transition from middle school into high school.
Communication with adults at this time is important to navigate this transition.
"As children approach the teen years, they will encounter situations that they have never before had to handle, and they will need support and guidance from the adults in their lives to help them navigate," Bleich said.
Bullying in Cole County middle and high schools also seems to have decreased significantly overall over the course of the past several surveys, 2010, 2012 and 2014.
However, the question of what causes reports of some bullying behaviors to rise and fall "is not really a question that this survey addresses. I can only tell you what the numbers are, not what is driving them," said Dr. Susan Depue of the Missouri Institute of Mental Health.
What can the state do?
There are several Missouri House and Senate bills that address bullying and school districts' policies toward it that are in play in the 2015 legislative session.
HB495, sponsored by Rep. Keith English, I-Florissant, and HB458, sponsored by Rep. Sue Allen, R-Town and Country, seek to expand the legal definition of bullying to fully encompass cyber-bullying and also mandate defined procedures for school districts to evaluate and discipline cyber-bullying incidents.
HB 458, in addition to Senate Bill 161, sponsored by Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, and SB440, sponsored by Sen. Scott Siffton, D-St. Louis County, requires that school districts create well-defined anti-bullying policies including a definition of bullying, a statement requiring district employees to report any and all bullying they observe or have knowledge of, a procedure for reporting bullying that does not punish reporters, a procedure for prompt investigation, outlines of anti-bullying training of employees and volunteers, outlines of anti-bullying policy publication, and a statement on how a school will respond to a confirmed case of bullying.
HB458 and SB 161 require that school counselors educate and heal victims of bullying, including specifically through "cultivating the student's self-worth and self-esteem; teaching the student to defend himself or herself assertively or effectively; helping the student develop social skills; and encouraging the student to develop an internal locus of control."
The bills differ on their approaches to deter bullying, however.
HB 458 requires that school districts provide their students with anti-bullying education and information, SB 161 seems to require something similar, describing the implementation of "programs and other initiatives to prevent bullying."
The Senate bills explicitly require that all students be treated equally by anti-bullying policies, with SB 440 specifically mandating the removal of "the requirement that policies not identify lists of protected classes of students."
SB 440 requires that districts' anti-bullying policies must be reviewed annually to ensure compliance with state and federal law.
SB 440 also requires that the parent(s) or guardian(s) of alleged bullies be notified in a report. Any student who has previously reported being a target of bullying, gone through all the necessary procedures of that district's reporting policy and yet still remains a target of bullying must be informed by the district that he or she may "seek other remedies," potentially including the pursuit of civil action against the bully or bullies and the intervention of any other county, state or federal agency or office that is "empowered to act on behalf of the student."