Twenty percent of students in grades 9 through 12 experience bullying, according to StopBullying.gov.

The school nurse, Kelli Evans said, “Kids who are bullied tend to be more sensitive, have lower self esteem, and are passive.” Evans said, “If a kid is getting bullied, they need to talk to an adult or someone they trust or walk away.”

Evans advised kids who are getting bullied, “Tell someone you trust and know that it is not your fault.” According to National Association of School Nurses, bullying is the most common type of aggression and victimization experienced by school-aged children.

Bullying is most often defined as an attack with an intended purpose of causing physical, verbal, or emotional harm. Bullying occurs at all age levels but starts to increase in late elementary school, peaks in middle school, and generally decrease in high school.

Boys are more often involved in physical aggression. Girls are often more involved with social distancing or indirect forms of bullying including false rumors, insults, and exclusion.

According to Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center, one out of every four (22 percent) report bullied during the school year. Bully victims are between two and nine times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims according to studies by Yale University. One in seven students is either a bully or a victim of bullying.

Seventy-one percent of students say that incidents of bullying as a problem at their school. Eight percent of students stay home on any given day they are afraid of being bullied. One out of five kids admit to being a bully or doing some “bullying.”