Mental-health advocate tells board district is not tracking bullying data, cites FYSAS statistics
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Summary
During public comment Cynthia West read FYSAS 2023 statistics on Okaloosa County students' mental health and said a district records request showed only a handful of bullying incidents in district records, urging better tracking and interventions.
Cynthia West, identifying herself as a mental-health professional and parent, spoke during the Feb. 23 public-comment period and urged the Okaloosa County School Board to improve tracking of bullying and student mental-health outcomes.
West cited the 2023 FYSAS study for Okaloosa County middle and high school students and read several figures to the board: "63 percent of our female students" reporting they felt "no good at all," "44 percent" saying "life is not worth it," "26 percent" actively considering suicide, "22 percent" having a plan and "14 percent" who have tried. She said those state survey results contrast with the district's own incident records: following a public-records request, West said she found "6 instances of bullying in our county" for one year, "0 instances of bullying recorded" for 2024-25 and "1" for the current school year, and argued that the district is not adequately tracking bullying incidents.
Why it matters: West framed the discrepancy as a failure to gather data that would allow the district to target interventions and measure outcomes, saying, "If we're not taking this seriously, if we're not tracking the data so we can put interventions into place, we're putting our children's lives at stake." She said she had discussed data tracking with Superintendent Chambers and pursued a records request when she could not find district-level tracking.
Board response and context: Board members prompted West to finish her remarks but did not offer a policy response during the workshop. The public comment was placed on the record; district staff later review and public follow-up may be required to clarify the district's data collection practices and reconcile the numbers West cited with official incident reporting systems.
Source material: West explicitly named the FYSAS 2023 study and described the records-request results she received; the board did not provide a contrary data presentation during the workshop.