The Delaware Dept. of Education officially released their 2015-2016 school bullying report. The report has a lot of good information, but how they lumped certain schools together is just wrong. One thing to keep in mind is that these reports only reflect what is submitted to the Delaware DOE through the eSchool tracking system.
Charter schools are listed in two categories: those in New Castle County and the rest that are in Kent and Sussex counties. For the vo-tech school districts, they are listed as “technical” schools. Which is ironic because there are more students in each vo-tech then in Delmar School District. As well, the Vo-Techs are all high schools. The report does not give a breakdown of schools or the grades for the students. Those are pretty important parts which would give a more accurate picture about what goes on with bullying.
What this report does not reflect is the amount of times teachers may want to submit a bullying report but they are ignored by administration at the school. Or if bullying is weighted less in an incident over something like offensive touching (most likely fighting) so a bullying incident is not reported by the school. I believe if a fight starts because of bullying, that should be recorded as well.
The actual report by the DOE lists the alleged incidents over the past five years separately from the substantiated incidents. This does not give a reader an accurate reflection of true trends within a district or the DOE’s own self-created “districts”. For as much as the DOE brags about their data capabilities and need for tracking data, this report is lacking in a great deal of information. Luckily for you, I spent a few hours breaking it down and putting it all together. The first number for each year is the alleged number of bullying reports submitted by the school. The second number is the amount of those reports that were substantiated as bullying. I have some insight after the numbers…
Appoquinimink
12-13 233 73 31.3%
13-14 164 24 14.6%
14-15 237 32 13.5%
15-16 304 35 11.5%
Brandywine
12-13 108 93 86.1%
13-14 63 79 125.4%*
14-15 37 37 100%
15-16 49 21 42.9%
Caesar Rodney
12-13 211 32 15.2%
13-14 118 40 33.9%
14-15 75 14 18.7%
15-16 103 27 26.2%
Cape Henlopen
12-13 42 19 45.2%
13-14 39 13 33.3%
14-15 77 26 33.85
15-16 53 18 34.0%
Capital
12-13 80 28 35.0%
13-14 58 25 65.8%
14-15 51 18 35.3%
15-16 28 15 53.6%
Christina
12-13 130 65 50.0%
13-14 114 38 33.3%
14-15 183 65 47.1%
15-16 134 55 41.0%
Colonial
12-13 248 44 17.7%
13-14 97 37 38.1%
14-15 81 63 77.7%
15-16 116 50 43.1%
Delmar
12-13 90 10 11.1%
13-14 0 6 0 0.0%*
14-15 58 3 5.2%
15-16 25 2 8.0%
Indian River
12-13 215 39 18.1%
13-14 150 25 16.7%
14-15 92 21 22.8%
15-16 252 51 20.2%
Lake Forest
12-13 49 37 75.5%
13-14 30 12 40.0%
14-15 34 1 3.0%
15-16 58 12 20.7%
Laurel
12-13 18 23 127.8%*
13-14 37 18 48.6%
14-15 28 12 42.9%
15-16 27 16 59.3%
Milford
12-13 116 20 17.2%
13-14 31 26 83.9%
14-15 37 15 40.5%
15-16 43 23 53.5%
Red Clay
12-13 596 121 20.3%
13-14 453 132 29.1%
14-15 415 102 24.6%
15-16 428 61 14.3%
Seaford
12-13 28 16 57.1%
13-14 17 18 105.9%*
14-15 34 8 23.5%
15-16 40 21 52.5%
Smyrna
12-13 69 13 18.8%
13-14 47 18 38.3%
14-15 57 20 35.1%
15-16 55 19 34.5%
Woodbridge
12-13 34 8 23.5%
13-14 15 10 66.7%
14-15 4 1 25.0%
15-16 25 9 36.0%
Technical Schools (the three vo-tech school districts)
12-13 44 36 81.8%
13-14 30 67 223.3%*
14-15 18 67 372.2%*
15-16 37 42 113.5%*
Charters: NCC
12-13 89 9 10.1%
13-14 107 22 20.6%
14-15 134 28 20.9%
15-16 125 17 13.6%
Charters: Kent and Sussex
12-13 46 27 58.7%
13-14 72 22 30.6%
14-15 54 10 18.5%
15-16 69 20 29.0%
State Totals
12-13 2446 713 29.15%
13-14 1642 632 38.49%
14-15 1706 543 31.8%
15-16 1971 514 26.1%
Okay, first off, what the hell is up with the Vo-Tech numbers? How can you have more substantiated bullying incidents and less actual reporting of alleged incidents? It doesn’t make any mathematical sense whatsoever. And the fact this has continued for three years in a row, someone at the DOE is dropping the ball. Or the DOE messed up the report. If it is the former, why isn’t the DOE giving technical assistance to the vo-techs on how to accurately report bullying? If it is the latter, come on guys! I’ve been asking for this report for weeks but you need to check your numbers. Aside from the vo-techs, any of the above entries with an asterisk next to it shows the same mathematical anomaly. With all due respect, John Sadowski runs the school climate and discipline unit at the DOE and I have always found him to be very helpful when I look for information.
I don’t trust a lot of these numbers. I don’t believe many of our schools are actually reporting everything to the DOE. Nor do I believe a lot of the substantiated numbers. I will give a margin of error for students filing false claims or parents overreacting. But not that big of a margin! In the first year of this required reporting, I can give some slack as schools tried to figure it all out. But it is three years later so there should be no excuses. I don’t like the downward trend in substantiated bullying that is happening as a state, especially in districts like Red Clay, Appoquinimink and the New Castle County charters. I don’t like the lack of consistency across the districts and charters. I don’t believe any of the substantiated numbers that are below 35%, and that is stretching the credibility factor on my part. I’ve always felt many schools in our state do less than the bare minimum when it comes to bullying reporting. This report proves it.
What makes the reporting given by the schools even more unbelievable is the listed reason for the substantiated bullying incident. “Peer Attention” and “Other” make up over two thirds of the listed reasons. That sparks of laziness on the school’s part. Almost anything could be put into those categories. But they fail to capture a true reason for the victim of the bullying and why a bully would target someone. For all the anti-bullying campaigns in schools, if we can’t get accuracy in the reporting of it we won’t be able to eradicate bullying unless we truly understand what is going on. We need honesty and fairness. If schools are operating in an environment of fear in reporting truthfully with bullying, then we need to tackle that as well. But no school is doing anyone any favors by not reporting what is actually happening. And if teachers continue to be ignored by administrators over bullying reporting, that is something legislation should take care of as soon as possible.
Here is the actual report issued by the Delaware DOE:
The Season Of Myths 