News
Sheriff’s Office Asks Students About Bullying
By: Susan Tebben | The Athens Messenger
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A survey asking students about bullying in their schools has already seen a bigger-than-expected response, but officials are hoping to gain even more insight from school-age children.
The Athens County Sheriff’s Office’s Domestic Violence Unit posted a survey online that takes anonymous answers about whether children have been bullied, have bullied and whether they’ve witnessed teachers reaching out to help.
The link to the survey was posted on the Athens County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page on Oct. 28, and has had a varied response.
“We’ve had over 9,000 views so far,” said Interim Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith.
Not only does the survey delve into the issues of who is bullying and gets bullied in schools, it touches on the affect bullying has on thoughts of suicide in school children.
“Stacey (Crook, Domestic Violence Advocate for the office) saw statistics on suicide caused by bullying and was really upset by it, so we came up with the survey,” said Dawn Deputy, fiscal officer for the sheriff’s office.
Deputy said final statistics on the survey won’t be available until later this week, but she hopes the information can “open some eyes” to the problem that some don’t recognize.
“This is something…to show the schools that this is happening and yes, there is an issue,” Deputy said.
The survey is aimed at elementary, middle school and high school aged students, and in the early statistics, Deputy said 82 percent of the 143 responses so far have said bullying is a problem in their school.
Other questions asked in the survey are where and when bullying occurs, if the survey taker has been a victim, a perpetrator or a witness to the bullying and what they did in each situation. It also asks how often students see teachers witnessing the bullying and if they attempted to stop it.
The final questions of the survey ask whether the student has missed school because of bullying, cried themselves to sleep, or thought about suicide because of bullying.
“50 percent of (survey takers) have said they missed school because of bullying,” Deputy said.
The survey is open until Sunday night, Deputy said. It can be accessed at www.surveymonkey.com/s/acohbully.