Michigan’s anti-bullying law requires schools to have policies and plans for bullying.
The Matt Epling Safe School Law has been in place since 2011, but insiders tell us that while most school districts have something on paper -- most policies are outdated, inconsistent, or not well understood -- and that can make it hard to keep up with technology.
“Cyberbullying doesn’t just hurt feelings. It’s not just something kids get over. It hurts the way that they see the world. It takes away their security, it takes away their safety, it takes away their innocence,” Jamie Kaniarz, the Executive Director of Defeat the Label said.
Defeat the Label is a nonprofit with a mission to create a safer, more inclusive school community. They offer anti-bullying school based programs.
“These parents are seeing their children change before their eyes because of cyberbullying, because we are continuing to give younger and younger kids access to technology that they are not emotionally, mentally, or in any other way prepared for,” Kaniarz said.
Kaniarz told Local 4 Investigators about a couple of ways kids are communicating with each other under the radar. One of those ways is through the Notes app on school-issued devices, in this case Kaniarz said she saw students using it on an iPad and created a class-wide shared document.
“They are able to create these messaging chains and nobody knows because the teachers just see them taking notes in class,” Kaniarz said.
Other ways kids are communicating with each other that parents might not recognize is the Facebook Kids Messenger app. Kaniarz said even if regular messaging apps are deactivated on a kid’s device, they can still get this messenger since you don’t have to be 18 years old to download it.
Then, of course, there’s Snapchat. Kaniarz said Snapchat gives kids a false sense of security.
“Students will tell me, middle school students, high school students. Miss Jamie, don’t you know Snapchat’s safe? Because it tells me if someone screenshots what I’ve posted,” Kaniarz said.
Snapchat does give users a notification if something they sent was screenshotted. But it doesn’t delete that screenshot from the other person’s phone and it doesn’t tell users if someone saved the image by taking a picture or video on a secondary device.
In October 2025, Local 4’s school security series report revealed that bullying was the top concern at Michigan schools. There were 10,920 bullying incidents reported to the state by schools in the 2024-25 school year alone.
You can find all our school safety investigation coverage here.
Local 4 Investigators reached out to the Michigan Department of Education. We wanted to know if all school districts are following the law and submitting anti-bullying policies. Who is in charge of enforcing the law? Is the law being enforced at all?
The department failed to get those answers to us before our deadline. We think this information is important for parents, teachers, and even students to have. We will continue seeking answers.
---> Read more: What can be done to prevent bullying? Here’s what an expert told us