Bullying and drug-related incidents in New York schools exceeded pre-pandemic highs in 2023-24, according to a report released Monday by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. On the other hand, rates of violent and disruptive incidents among students dropped.
The report is based on data supplied by the state Education Department’s School Safety and Educational Climate (SSEC) report. It follows up on a 2019 report from DiNapoli that looked at the first year of data from the SED.
Bullying was most frequent, making up 62% of reported incident categories in the 2023-24 school year, not including cyberbullying, DiNapoli said. There were 29,718 bullying incidents reported during that school year at a rate of 12.4 incidents per 1,000 students. When 1,734 schools that reported no bullying were excluded, the rate increased to 18.2 incidents per 1,000 pupils, up from 10.2 incidents in the 2017-18 school year, according to the report.
Reported instances of bullying in New York City more than doubled to 25.8 per 1,000 students in 2023-24 from 10.5 in 2019-20 after in-person learning returned and additional examples of bullying and harassment were added by the state in 2021, DiNapoli said. Bullying in upstate schools remained consistently higher than downstate, not including New York City, after in-person learning returned, he said.
Drug and alcohol-related incident rates in secondary schools also increased past pre-pandemic levels when in-person learning resumed. Incidents rose to 6.5 per 1,000 students in 2023-24 from 4.2 in 2017-18, according to the report. Upstate incidents in 2023-24 were more than twice as high – 9.8 per 1,000 students – compared to New York City, which reported 4.2 per 1,000. Downstate districts, excluding New York City, came in at a rate of 6.2 per 1,000.
“It’s disturbing to see the rise in bullying and drug-related incidents,” DiNapoli said. We need to do everything we can to make sure students and teachers feel safe and this data shows there is more to do inside and outside our schools to meet these goals.”
Cyberbullying rates stayed low, though many incidents may go unreported, DiNapoli said. There were 4,396 reported in 2023-24, an overall rate of 1.8 incidents per 1,000 pupils.
Serious violent and disruptive incident rates dropped in secondary schools.
Assaults declined to 0.5 incidents per 1,000 students in 2023-24 from 4.9 incidents; sexual offense cases fell to 0.1 cases per 1,000 from 1.6; and weapons possession cases sank to 0.9 from from 3.1, DiNapoli said, citing SED data.
Definition changes for serious incidents SED implemented for 2021-22 stipulate incidents must meet the criteria for a felony as determined by school officials, and the incident must have been referred to law enforcement, DiNapoli noted.