Surveying the students is a great way to find out if bullying is a concern at your campus.

One of the biggest problems concerning bullying in schools is that the staff may not even be aware that bullying is even taking place. The primary reason is that bullying behavior is extremely covert. Bullies don’t want to get in trouble, so they physically harass their victims when adults are not present. One of the ways bullies accomplish this is by indirect bullying. Indirect bullying is even more difficult to detect than physical bullying. Spreading rumors, social isolation, and manipulating friendships are almost impossible for staff to observe. Another form of bullying used by students is called cyber bullying. Students use cyber bullying to attack their victims by sending threatening text messages and using the internet to do the dirty work for them.
Since bullying is so difficult to detect, how can a school determine if they have a bullying problem? The answer is simple: survey the students. By surveying the students, the staff will be provided with valuable information. If done correctly, a survey can specify how much bullying is taking place, where and how often it is happening, and which students are being bullied. Depending on the type of survey conducted, a campus may even be able to determine who the bullies are. Many staff members may already know the students who are physically bullying others, but a survey will help determine the students who are indirectly bullying their classmates. This is extremely important since many of the students who are involved in indirect bullying are the students who teachers would least likely expect to be involved.
Numerous surveys about bullying have been designed. A staff will need to decide if they want to use one of these surveys, devise one of their own, or use a combination of both. Planning ahead is important because some surveys may be difficult and time consuming to grade. Depending on the time and staff available to conduct and grade the surveys, campuses may want to consider using a multiple choice survey and have the students answer on a bubble sheet that can be graded with a machine. This will significantly reduce the time is takes to grade the surveys and eliminate the human error factor.
I highly recommend that staff members do their homework before surveying the students. Bullying is a real and potentially life-threatening problem. Staff members must be confident that the survey they use will provide them with an accurate picture of the bullying problem. Speaking with other campuses who have conducted a survey is a great way to determine the type of survey to use, the time it takes to conduct and grade the survey, and, most importantly, determine if the results of the survey were beneficial in reducing the number of bullying incidents at their campus.
Indirect and cyber bullying may be difficult to detect, but not impossible. By surveying your students, you give them the ability to voice their opinions safely. This, ultimately, will assist in lessening the number of bullying incidents in your school.