text: One of the apparent reasons that students attend online school is to escape bullying. Statistically, bullying has reduced significantly in the past 30 years, yet these are the years when online school was introduced. No one can justify targeted and repetative bullying, however, light teasing can actually create thicker skin and teach students how to cope with people being rude to them and how to handle constructive or not so constructive critisism which are heavily prevailant in the real world. Consequently, the new technology that made online school an option also created a new type of bullying, cyberbullying. Even attending school online cannot prevent one from being cyberbullied as it is through the very technology the use for their education. In public schools students can learn how to deal with bullies and how to react when people are less than nice to them but online school students may not know how to handle cyberbullying and become unstable. This contradicts the argument that online school is better than public schools for the mental health of students. Many public schools now have zero tolerance bullying policies and have student clubs and organizations that conduct in-school activities to counteract bullying and provide safe spaces for students.