A district wide survey on bullying answered by nearly everyone attending local public schools in grades 3-12, reveals that 57% of the school children in this city have been bullied at one time or another.
In addition, 66% of those claiming to have been bullied said they reported it to a teacher, while 43% said they reported it to their parents.
The bullying stopped for 45% of those reporting the acts against them to their teachers.
Bullying is carried out in many forms.
Bullying, the survey revealed, is verbal (47%), physical (16%), social (17%), extortion (6%) and cyber bullying (14%).
Where does it take place, according to the survey?
Gym class is nearly absent of bullying with only nine students reporting bullying while in gym class.
Classroom bullying accounted for 29% of all incidents.
Outside of school incidents claimed another 26%.
A majority (52%) of those surveyed said that bullying is carried out by students of the same age.
Perhaps the most shocking figure is that 74% of those interviewed revealed that they had seen others bullying their classmates – and that 69% reported those acts of bullying.
Only 38% of those surveyed indicted they had been bullied at least once during their time in the public schools.
An even smaller number indicated they had been bullied twice (22%) and 39% said they had been bullied more than twice.
Last week, the governor signed the state’s new anti-bullying law.
The School Committee integrated its anti-bullying protocol with that of the state, providing Everett’s Public Schools with one of the strongest anti-bullying programs in the state.