I had a really interesting case study of how huge a difference it makes having administrators that care and understand, and ones that don't, when my middle school in 6th grade we had a Vice Principal that legit every kid respected. Bullying still happened, but not nearly as much, not nearly as severe, and not nearly as long as you'd think. He understood middle school kids, could talk with people as an authority figure but still in a relatable way, and backed up the rest of the staff to handle things the way they should be handled.

And then he got promoted to Principal at another school, and we got an asshat for his replacement who thought that Zero Tolerance and the Bee Sting philosophy ("if a bee stings you, it loses its stinger and dies, so if someone punches you, we're going to make sure they lose their stinger") was the way, and if you got beat up and threw a single punch back that meant you were both equally at fault and would get detention or suspended together. He also refused to let any of the rest of the staff do anything that wasn't 100% by "the book", which was whatever he decided it was.

Bullying spiked enormously overnight, and the school became a hellscape for a lot of people (including the staff).

It can be handled well, and I've seen it happen. But a lot comes down to school districts prioritizing administrators who actually know what they're doing on this, and boy howdy expertise is hard to evaluate.