Exclusive | Growing number of NYC students feel unsafe as gang activity, bullying uptick in schools: survey

While Chancellor David Banks painted a rosy picture of the Big Apple’s public schools this week, the results of a citywide student survey show a darker reality — with a growing number of kids saying they are bullied, unhappy and unsafe.Of 355,105 K-12 pupils polled by the city Department of Education this spring, 51% said harassment, bullying and intimidation by classmates was common.Last year, 48% of students felt that way.Gang activity occurred some or most of the time in school, 27% of students said, up 2% from last year. More kids feel unsafe and unhappy, the DOE survey found, with 20% of kids disagreeing with the statement: “most days I have felt safe when at school,” a 3% increase from 2023.

And 26% of kids rejected the phrase: “most days I have felt happy when at school,” up from 24% a year earlier. One Manhattan teen said she’s already heard classmates, within the first two weeks of school, claiming to be gangbangers, demanding cash and making threats like, “I will pop you.”“It makes you feel scared,” said Jenny, 15, a freshman at Stephen T.Mather Building Arts & Craftsmanship High School in Hells Kitchen.Another teen who attends Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology, located in the same West 49th Street building, said it’s hard to know who’s bluffing and who’s really in a gang.“I feel like they’re mostly wannabes, but you never really know,” said Mason, 15, a junior.Fear seems to go hand in hand with more gangs and guns in school.“So far this year, there’s been a lot of school shootings everywhere, so it makes students feel a lot more overwhelmed and more nervous to come to school,” Mason explained.On Thursday two kids were caught bringing guns into Flushing High School in Queens, and a teen was shot at a Staten Island playground a block from a school. On Friday, a 16-year-old was found with a gun in Mott Hall High School in Harlem, police said.In May, two boys were slashed – one in the face and ano...