Schools in St. Albert’s Protestant system appear to be getting a handle on bullying, the results of a survey the district conducted this year suggest.
As part of its annual satisfaction survey, the district asks students about the prevalence of bullying. Twenty-one per cent of elementary students responded yes to the question, “Have you been bullied by another student on a repeated basis this year?”
Among junior and senior high students, 15 per cent responded yes to the question, “Are you subjected to ongoing harassment, intimidation and/or bullying in your school?”
This year the results were the lowest since 2007, when the district added the bullying question to the survey. After the first survey, 23 per cent of elementary students and 18 per cent of those in junior or senior high reported being bullied on an ongoing basis.
“I’m certainly pleased to see that we’ve hit a downward trend because it always troubles us that people feel that others are imposing their will on them in an unwanted fashion,” said district superintendent Barry Wowk.
Every school in the district has designed its own “character education” initiatives and all are working hard to reduce bullying, Wowk said.
He thinks that earlier bullying stats may have been inflated because, when schools started ramping up anti-bullying efforts a few years ago, people started to view all conflict as bullying. The fact schools are helping students to better define bullying might be contributing to the lower rates picked up in the survey, he said.
“I do think that our young people are starting to understand the difference between bullying and conflict,” he said.
“We’re not going to stop working on it. It’s nice to see the trend turn but it’s part of life and we need to work on it constantly.”
He believes students are also learning that they can stand up to bullying.
Members of the school board were pleased with the trend after learning the figures at Wednesday’s public meeting.
“It still concerns me that it’s as high as it is but I do appreciate that a lot of people are putting emphasis into that area,” said trustee Joan Trettler.
“No, we haven’t eradicated it but it’s going in the right direction,” added trustee Judy Huisman.
