NEWS RELEASE

October 20, 2015

Lawmakers get sneak peek at school safety

study findings
FRANKFORT The reported incidents of Kentuckys public school students accused
of bullying, harassing or threatening others has more than tripled since 2012 to
21,015.
The statistic was contained in the preliminary results of a school safety study from
the Office of Education Accountability, known as OEA, which was presented on
Tuesday to a bipartisan panel of lawmakers exploring ways to make schools safer.
In 2012, there were a total of 6,782 bullying, harassment and threatening behavior
violations reported, the study found. This number more than doubled the following
year. By 2014 that number had tripled the 2012 number. The numbers started to
plateau this past year only increasing by 908 incidents to 21,015.
Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, who co-chaired the panel known as the
Education Assessment & Accountability Review Subcommittee, asked about reasons
for the dramatic 210-percent increase.
Preliminary results presented to legislators indicate the increase was caused by
schools failing to report bullying, harassing and threatening behavior as required
by law until last couple of school years in addition to increased reporting
requirements.
Other preliminary findings include the following:
In 2012, harassment was almost half of the total violations at 49 percent. The
following year all types of school violations examined by the OEA more than
doubled with the exception of threatening staff.
Beginning in 2014 a new school violation threatening another student began to
be specifically tracked. That year there were a little over 1,600 incidents of
threatening another student reported, or 8 percent of the total violations for that
year. Harassment increased the most in 2014, adding about 2,500 more incidents,
accounting for 45 percent of the total incidents that year.
This past school year saw the biggest shift in incident types with threatening
another student almost doubling from prior years. That category now represents 19
percent of the total violations. Threatening staff was the only other type of school
violation that had an increase last school year. It increased 220 to a little more than
4,000 incidents.
Of the violations from this past school year, a little under 6,500 happened in
elementary schools. Thats 32 percent of the total violations that year. Fifty-nine
percent of those violations were from bullying.

The violations committed by middle school students account for 49 percent of the
total violations and account for a little under 10,000 incidents. At the middle school,
harassment was the biggest problem with 4,671 incidents reported.
The least amount of violations occurred in high schools with a little over 4,000 total
violations. Harassment carried over as the largest problem in those grades with
1,692 violations, or 42 percent.
Retired educator Rep. Linda Belcher, D-Shepherdsville, said the preliminary findings
were concerning.
We all know if we do not have a safe environment, children do not learn well, she
said. So if we look at this, it kind of bothers me that we have this much going on in
our schools.
Final results of the study are scheduled to be released in 2016.
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