UPPER EAST SIDE — Schools across the Upper East Side are reporting few cases of bullying, even though students say bullying happens regularly at their schools, according to state and city data.
State records show P.S. M169 Robert F. Kennedy, at 110 E. 88th St., reported only one bullying incident in the 2013-2014 school year, but a city survey of sixth through 12th graders conducted by the city's Department of Education, 34 percent of students said they experience bullying "most or all of the time."
Advocates warn that there have been systematic problems with underreporting incidents of bullying to authorities, despite a vow to make the process more transparent.
The Life Sciences Secondary School on East 96th Street had the most reported cases of bullying on the Upper East Side with a total of 17 incidents in the 2013-2014 year. But roughly 40 percent of students at the school say that bullying happens all or most of the time, according to the city's survey.
In the same time period, P.S./I.S. 217 Roosevelt Island reported eight incidents of bullying. The DOE's 2015 survey shows that 21 percent of students there believe bullying happens most of the time.
The Education Department uses two databases to track bullying — one called Violent and Disruptive Incident Reporting and the Dignity for all Students Act to address cyber-bullying and bias-related bullying (targeting race, religion, gender or weight, for example).
All three schools did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
To find out if bullying is being reported at your school, check out DNAinfo's interactive list.
