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Stephanie Madrid, a student journalist at Cy Ridge High School, just opened our eyes to a growing, silent problem among students today.

 “Like the first day you can get beat up by your boyfriend. I mean you never really know,” she said. “I mean you just have to get to know the person. Your parents have to get involved.”

The state of Texas says teen dating violence has grown in to an epidemic.

One third of today's Texas teens suffer some kind of abuse in their romantic relationships. Half of all reported date rapes happened among teenagers and nearly half of adult sex offenders say they committed their first offense before the age of 18.

“We actually have a prevention program where we go out into high schools and talk about healthy relationships, safe dating, because it is so prevalent,” said Kelly Young of the Houston Area Women’s Center.

For our student journalist, finding a victim was easy. Convincing her to talk wasn't, but Madrid told her, “I would really appreciate it because you would be giving so many girls a voice because there are a lot of girls or boys that have been through that. But they won’t say anything.”

The victim did speak up.

“I wish I would have had somebody sit there and tell me what was happening to me and what he was doing to me wasn't right,” the unidentified teenage victim said.

The student victim told Madrid that she was often verbally abused, but her boyfriend also hit her in the face.

 “As a naive young girl wanting to have that boyfriend, wanting to have that manly security, because I didn't have a father there. Well that was my mistake,” she said.

Madrid talked with her friends and discovered that most teens try to hide the abuse.

“I think if you don't have a great communication with your child you have to start there,” said Young.

Last week all high schools in Texas were required to begin discussing the issue of abuse with teens.

And student reporter Stephanie Madrid is trying to get the word out too.