La. High Schoolers Lead Nation in Alcohol Use and Cyber-Bullying

“Indicators of School Crime and Safety:2019,” was released Wednesday from the National Center for Education Statistics with input from the federal justice and education departments. The information collected was during the 2017-2018 school year. According to WDSU, those statistics show that Louisiana public high school students lead the nation with alcohol use.  The information released shows that a third of 9th through 12th-grade students said they drank alcohol within the past 30 days.

Louisiana was also reported to have the highest rate of cyber-bullying, with 21.3% of its high school students saying they had been targeted on social media, email, chat rooms, or other electronic formats. Often, cyber-bullying is connected to bullying at school.

The co-director of the Cyber-bullying Research Center, Justin Patchin, says it’s important for parents to talk to their kids about cyber-bullying and opening up the line of communication.  He says children may not feel comfortable going to their parents with a cyber-bullying situation out of fear that the parent may take the technology away.

For information and resources on cyber-bullying go to cyberbullying.org.