Filmmaker aims to end teen bullying

By Staff Writer

Government statistics show that about 30 percent of students have experienced some kind of bullying. However, filmmaker J.C. Pohl - co-creator of the anti-bullying program Teen Truth Live - believes that the number is closer to 99 percent, Whittier Daily News reports.

Pohl says that he has spoken on this topic to more than half a million students across the country over the past few years. Of those 500,000 children, he said that fewer than 2,000 admitted that they have never been bullied, which means that approximately 498,000 have experienced it, the news source reports.

Pohl screened a student-filmed documentary on bullying called Teen Truth, and spoke to students a local high school that has recently been aided by an $8 million federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant in order to prevent bullying on its campus.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, nearly 30 percent of youth in the U.S. - more than 5.7 million - are involved in bullying, either as a bully, victim or both.