safety checklist

School Safety Statistics

School Safety Statistics can tell us a lot about our childrens safety at school. We often do not actually know the real truth, rather rely on what we hear on TV and read in the newspapers not knowing if the numbers are accurate.

Thanks to the Us Department of Education, we can finally get down to the real facts and details. See, the DOE surveys and collects information on crime, safety and violence in US Elementary and Secondary schools. They then analyze that information and report it back in charts and ways we can understand. It provides us a "snapshot" of what is going on.

Some of the categories that the DOE looks at include: Fights, bullying, classroom disorder, teacher injuries, weapons, victimization, and what is the overall perception of school safety.

We will start with the most violent crimes first.

School Safety Statistics

The first category is Violent Deaths At School.

From the period July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009, there were 38 school-associated violent deaths in elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Of the 38 student, staff, and non-student school-associated violent deaths occurring between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009, 24 were homicides and 14 were suicides.

The second Category Nonfatal Student Victimization–Student Reports

In 2008, the victimization rates for students ages 12 to 18 varied according to student characteristics. There were no measurable differences by age group (i.e., students ages 12 to 14 versus students ages 15 to 18) in the rates of total crime, theft, and violent victimizations at school. However, the rates of total crime, theft, violent, and serious violent victimizations away from school were lower for younger students (ages 12 to 14) than for older students (ages 15 to 18).

Females had lower rates of violent crime victimization than males both at school and away from school in 2008.

Violence and Crime at School–Principal Report
During the 2007-08 school year, 85 percent of public schools recorded that one or more incidents of violence, theft, or other crimes, had taken place, amounting to an estimated 2.0 million crimes. This figure translates to a rate of 43 crimes per 1,000 students enrolled in 2007-08. During the same year, 62 percent of schools reported one of the specified crimes to the police, amounting to about 704,000 crimes-or 15 crimes per 1,000 students enrolled.

The percentages of public schools recording incidents of crime or reporting incidents of crime to the police in 2007-08 were not measurably different from the percentages of schools doing so in 1999-2000. While this pattern held true for the percentage of public schools reporting violent incidents, as well as the percentage of schools recording and reporting serious violent incidents and thefts, there was an increase in the percentage of schools recording violent incidents over this period (from 71 to 75 percent) and a decrease in the percentage of schools recording other incidents during this period (from 73 to 67 percent).

Nonfatal Teacher Victimization at School–Teacher Reports

During the 2007-08 school year, a smaller percentage of teachers, 7 percent, were threatened with injury by a student from their school than in 1993-94 (12 percent) and 1999-2000 (9 percent), though this percentage was not measurably different from the percentage in 2003-04 (7 percent). The percentage of teachers reporting that they had been physically attacked by a student from their school, 4 percent, was not measurably different in 2007-08 than in any previous survey year.

Perceptions of Personal Safety at School and Away From School-Student Reports

In 2007, a greater percentage of students ages 12-18 reported that they were afraid of attack or harm at school (5 percent) than away from school (3 percent) during the school year.

Between 1995 and 2007, the percentage of students who feared attack or harm at school decreased from 12 to 5 percent. Between the two most recent survey years, 2005 and 2007, the percentage of students who feared attack or harm at school decreased from 6 percent to 5 percent. Away from school, there was no pattern of increase or decrease in the percentage of students who feared attack or harm between 1999 and 2007. However, the percentage of students who feared attack or harm away from school was smaller in 2007 (3 percent) than in 2005 (5 percent).
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2010 (NCES 2011-002). 

Source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=49

So there you have some School Safety Stastistics. Hopefully this can help you and your family be more informed.

School Safety

School safety is something that all individuals in authority in a school setting need to take into consideration. No matter how large or small a school is, if there are children who attend, the safety of those children is the school's responsibility.

Did You Know

That the very first school bus was drawn by horse? In 1827 George Shillibeer built it for a Quaker school and was designed to carry up to 25 children. Heat not include!