School Performance - Perceptions Of School Safety

Despite the media attention that accompanied school violence in the 1990s, students felt safer at school in 1999 than they did in 1995. The percentage who reported that they avoided one or more places at school for their own safety fell from 9% to 4.6%. The percentage who reported that they feared being attacked or harmed at school experienced a similar pattern. Students in seventh and eighth grade were more fearful than older or younger students, and students in urban schools were more fearful than students in suburban or rural schools. The source cautions that comparisons between the 1989 data and later data must be made with caution because of changes in the questionnaire. School shooting incidents took place in 1992 and 1993.

While students feel more secure, their parents grow more anxious. A Wall Street Journal/CNN poll one year after the Columbine incident showed that 71% of Americans thought shootings were likely in their schools. The government tells us that the odds of a school-aged child being killed in school are one in 2 million.

School-related violence may be down, but bomb threats are up (often called in on cell phones). The National School Safety Center reported at least 5,000 bomb threats in the six months after the Columbine incident, costing schools thousands of lost classroom hours. That trend shows little sign of abating.

Adults' fears of school-related violence have resulted in the stationing of more police officers in schools. Locker searches, surveillance cameras and metal detectors are now commonplace. Zero Tolerance Policies bring suspensions from school for infractions both major and trivial.

Are our schools becoming more like prisons? Kids seem to think so. In the report School House Hype, students complained: "Too much security makes you wonder whether it is safe." "When I get up to go to school in the morning, I don't want to feel like I'm going to a correctional facility."

In 1996-97, the most recent year for which data are available, more than half of American K-12 public schools reported a criminal incident to the police. The chance of bad things happening in your child's school is greater if you live in a bad neighborhood. Preventing Crime tells us that "Schools in urban, poor, disorganized communities experience more disorder than other schools." Nevertheless, polls show that rural parents (54%) are more fearful of their children's safety than are urban parents (46%) or suburban parents (44%).

Students who fear for their safety at school are not in a mood conducive to learning. They are more prone to absences. We turn now to a widespread and insidious form of frightening behavior — bullying.

Sources: Chart: U.S. Departments of Education and Justice. Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2000. Online. Available: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ April 24, 2002. "Are U.S. Schools Safe?" Online. Available: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/schools/. Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise Gottfredson, et al., Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising, A Report to the United States Congress. Prepared for the National Institute of Justice. Online. Available: http://www.ncjrs.org/works/. April 24, 2002. "NCES: More Than Half the Nation's Schools Report Criminal Incidents." Curriculum Administrator (April 2001) p. 16. Brooks, Kim, Vincent Schiraldi, et al., School House Hype: Two Years Later, A Policy Report. Justice Policy Center and Children's Law Center.