Faced with an explosion of cyberbullying in the city’s public schools, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is kicking off a series of public forums with educators and families to tackle the disturbing issue.
State Education Department stats published in January show incidents of online bullying in city schools jumped more than 350% in two years, rising from 178 in 2014 to 804 last year. Critics contend that students are suffering and schools could do more.
To raise awareness, the City Council will host one town hall meeting in each of the five boroughs, starting with a session Mark-Viverito will hold in City Council chambers Thursday night.
The goal is to help parents help kids who are being bullied, Mark- Viverito said.
“In the era of the internet, bullies everywhere have taken their efforts to the digital level,” Mark- Viverito added. “Cyberbullying has spiraled into an epidemic and it must be stopped.”
Mark-Viverito will be joined at the Thursday meeting by Jane Clementi, whose son Tyler killed himself in 2010 after being cyberbullied at Rutgers University.
Clementi formed a charity called The Tyler Clementi Foundation, which will co-sponsor the series with the San Francisco nonprofit Common Sense Media and AT&T. A short film on cyberbullying produced by AT&T with city students will be screened at each event.
Schools Deputy Chancellor Elizabeth Rose will also attend the kickoff meeting, along with reps from the city schools’ Office of Safety and Youth Development and officials from other agencies.
An online survey of 1,000 city teens and parents conducted by AT&T found nearly half of teens who responded had been bullied online.
And an online cyberbullying “fight club” at the elite Bronx High School of Science that boasted 1,500 members prompted a city investigation after it was exposed in November.
