Table 29. Percentage of public elementary schools that had specified safety policies to regulate school climate, by selected school characteristics: 1999

Crime and Safety Surveys

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Table 29. Percentage of public elementary schools that had specified safety policies to regulate school climate, by selected school characteristics: 1999–2000

School characteristic	Require students to wear uniforms	Enforce a strict dress code	Provide a printed code of student conduct to students	Provide a printed code of student conduct to parents	Require faculty and staff to wear badges or picture IDs	Provide telephones in most classrooms	Prohibit all tobacco use on school grounds
All public elementary schools	15	41	90	92	27	45	89

Enrollment size
Less than 300	4	34	87	89	17	39	84
300–499	13	38	90	91	23	45	89
500–999	22	47	92	93	37	48	91
1,000 or more	35	60	100	96	32	53	93

Urbanicity
City	31	54	93	93	33	48	88
Urban fringe	15	39	90	94	32	49	92
Town	8	37	82	77	17	37	81
Rural	2	35	92	93	18	40	87

Crime level where students live¹
High	48	64	93	89	32	44	89
Moderate	27	57	97	96	37	43	92
Low	6	34	87	90	24	45	86
Mixed	24	40	96	96	21	44	98

Percent minority enrollment¹
0–5 percent	‡	26	89	91	19	41	86
6–20 percent	6	29	88	91	29	47	88
21–50 percent	5	50	91	91	34	46	87
More than 50 percent	42	59	95	94	27	44	93

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	3	25	82	86	23	50	88
21–50 percent	5	38	89	92	26	47	86
More than 50 percent	29	53	96	95	29	40	91

Percent of students below 15th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	9	37	92	92	19	45	90
6–15 percent	11	35	89	91	31	47	88
More than 15 percent	25	53	91	91	29	42	88

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	24	48	97	93	29	37	91
36–60 percent	12	42	90	93	27	47	87
More than 60 percent	8	33	85	89	23	50	87

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	17	36	93	87	34	44	97
26–50 percent	12	46	95	95	25	36	88
51–75 percent	16	42	93	95	32	46	89
More than 75 percent	15	39	85	88	23	48	88

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	19	43	90	87	40	40	86
45–55 percent	13	39	90	93	26	47	88
More than 55 percent	21	51	94	89	20	38	96

Student/teacher ratio¹,²
Less than 12	12	37	92	93	27	43	91
12–16	16	44	90	93	28	43	85
More than 16	16	46	90	89	26	48	89

Number of classroom changes¹
0–3 changes	19	46	90	91	27	46	89
4–6 changes	12	38	91	91	28	46	87
More than 6 changes	15	42	93	97	22	42	94

Use of paid law enforcement³
Regular use	24	46	92	92	34	43	90
No regular use	10	39	90	91	22	46	88

Number of serious discipline problems⁴
No problems	11	37	89	91	25	45	87
1 problem	14	43	95	94	25	47	89
2 problems	28	58	91	89	24	42	89
3 or more problems	31	56	94	91	46	42	96

Transfers as percentage of enrollment¹,⁵
0 to 6 percent	9	33	80	84	19	46	84
6 to 11 percent	9	37	93	95	29	49	90
11 to 21 percent	15	36	93	94	28	45	87
21 percent or more	22	54	93	92	29	40	91

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions¹,⁶
No disruptions	14	40	90	91	26	46	88
Any disruptions	21	52	100	94	28	33	94

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	4	23	79	85	21	48	87
1–2 percent	12	41	93	93	24	44	89
3–5 percent	19	50	92	94	33	39	90
6–10 percent	40	58	100	93	33	47	85
More than 10 percent	32	49	92	91	30	64	87

Prevalence of violent incidents¹,⁷
No violent incidents	12	37	85	87	27	46	88
Any violent incidents	17	44	94	94	26	44	89
‡ Reporting standards not met.
¹ Some schools are omitted from these categories because of missing data on their school characteristics. For this reason, the detailed results do not sum to the totals. See appendix J of 2000 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) Detailed Data Documentation (NCES 2004-307) for further information.
² Student/teacher ratio was calculated by dividing the total number of students enrolled in the school by the total number of full-time equivalent teachers. The total number of full-time equivalent teachers is a combination of the full-time and part-time teachers, including special education teachers, with an adjustment to compensate for the part-time status.
³ Schools were included as regularly using paid law enforcement if they reported the use of paid law enforcement during any of the following times: at any time during school hours, while students were arriving or leaving, at selected school activities (e.g., athletic and social events, open houses, science fairs), or at any other time that the respondent specified.
⁴ Serious discipline problems is a count of discipline problems reported by principals. These discipline problems include student racial tensions, student bullying, student verbal abuse of teachers, widespread disorder in classrooms, and student acts of disrespect for teachers. If a principal reported that any of these problems occurred daily or weekly in their school, each was counted once in the total number of serious discipline problems. Undesirable gang activities and undesirable cult or extremist group activities were also counted once as a problem if the principal reported that these events occurred at all in their school.
⁵ Transfers as a percentage of enrollment combines the number of students who were transferred to a school and the number of students who were transferred from a school, divided by the total number of students enrolled in the school.
⁶ Schoolwide disruptions include actions that disrupted school activities such as bomb threats or anthrax threats. Respondents were instructed to exclude all fire alarms, including false alarms.
⁷ Violent incidents include rape, sexual battery other than rape, physical attack or fight with or without a weapon, threat of physical attack with or without a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.
NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. "At school/at your school" was defined for respondents as including activities happening in school buildings, on school grounds, on school buses, and at places that are holding school-sponsored events or activities. Respondents were instructed to, unless the survey specified otherwise, only respond for those times that were during normal school hours or when school activities/events were in session. A gang was defined for respondents as, "an ongoing loosely organized association of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, that has a common name, signs, symbols or colors, whose members engage, either individually or collectively, in violent or other forms of illegal behavior." Elementary schools are defined as schools in which the lowest grade is not higher than grade 3 and the highest grade is not higher than grade 8.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.

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