Dive Brief:

• A staggering 109 Western New York schools reported zero incidents of bullying last year, raising some questions about the validity of the data.
• The 2012 Dignity For All Students Act (DASA) forced stringent bullying reform efforts onto the state, including the mandatory sharing of all incident reports.
• The fact that some districts may not be properly recording incidents of bullying is problematic especially because DASA was created to counter criticism that New York state wasn't doing enough to report incidents of bullying and harassment. 

Dive Insight:

This news follows the New York Education Department and Attorney General's Office's Fall statewide survey, which aimed out what anti-bullying measures districts had in place. The survey was one aspect of DASA, and an attempt to get a better grip of what schools are and aren't doing for students' emotional and physical well-being. State officials were meant to create new-anti-bullying policies based off the answers, but it's of course a bit harder to showcase effective strategies when districts are saying they have no problem to begin with. The schools reporting no bullying incidents account for around 25% of those in Western New York.