Annual Reports and Information Staff (Annual Reports)

Equitable Access to Supportive School and Classroom Environments

“Students need more than challenging courses and effective teachers to thrive academically. They also need physically and emotionally safe learning environments, with a range of supports that pave the way for them to succeed by addressing their socioemotional and academic needs. Safe, supportive school environments and access to counseling, as well as referral to social services, are especially important for students who experience chronic stressors outside of school that affect their learning and development.”¹

Prior research has found that a school environment where bullying, victimization, and violence are prevalent could have a negative impact on student achievement and, ultimately, secondary school completion and student well-being.² School order and discipline are also associated with student engagement and satisfaction, and this relationship holds true for students from different demographic backgrounds and levels of academic performance.^3,4 Importantly, disparities in rates of disciplinary practices by race/ethnicity are owed to a complex set of factors that go beyond student behavior. Studies have shown that these factors include implicit teacher biases as applied to subjective infraction criteria, teacher race/ethnicity, students’ perceived equity, and students’ skin tone, all of which have been shown to impact disciplinary rates.⁵ This domain, Equitable Access to Supportive School and Classroom Environments, is examined in relation to three indicators—school climate, discipline practices, and nonacademic supports for student success—using data from the School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), and the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). These indicators are based on recommendations in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) framework. The NASEM report notes that some of the recommended indicators have limitations. Currently, the Equity in Education Dashboard provides data based on published products. Because data in our published products do not always perfectly align with the recommended indicators in the NASEM report, we have indicated where our data differ from recommendations in the report. More findings will be added to the Equity in Education Dashboard over time. Group differences in this domain are examined across five educational equity dimensions: sex,⁶ race/ethnicity, sexual identity, school locale, and socio-economic status (SES), wherever the data allow.⁷

Key Findings on Equitable Access to Supportive School and Classroom Environments

The School Climate indicator consists of two constructs: students’ perceptions of personal safety at school and student reports of bullying.

In 2019, there were differences among 12- to 18-year-olds who reported being afraid of attack or harm at school, by race/ethnicity and locale.
- Higher percentages of students who were Black, Hispanic, and of Two or more races, than of students who were White or Asian, reported being afraid of attack or harm at school. The percentage was also higher for White students than for Asian students.
- A higher percentage of students ages 12–18 enrolled in schools in cities than of students enrolled in schools in rural areas reported being afraid of attack or harm at school during the school year.
In 2019, student reports of bullying at school differed by sex, race/ethnicity, and locale.
- A higher percentage of female students than of male students reported being bullied at school during the school year.
- The percentage of students who reported being bullied at school during the school year was higher for students of Two or more races than for White students and Black students; each of these percentages were in turn higher than the percentage of Asian students.
- A higher percentage of students enrolled in schools in rural areas reported being bullied at school during the school year than students enrolled in schools in other locales.
In 2019, there were also differences in student reports of electronic bullying by sex, race/ethnicity, and sexual identity.
- The percentage of students who reported being electronically bullied was higher for female students than for male students.
- The percentages of students who reported being electronically bullied were higher for students of Two or more races and White students than for Hispanic or Asian students; each of these percentages were higher than the percentage of Black students who reported being electronically bullied.
- Additionally, the percentage of students who reported being electronically bullied was higher for gay, lesbian, or bisexual students than for students who were not sure about their sexual identity, which was in turn higher than the percentage for heterosexual students.

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The Discipline Practices indicator consists of one construct: out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.

In 2019–20, the percentage of public schools that took at least one serious disciplinary action (out-of-school suspensions and expulsions)⁸ was higher for schools in cities (39 percent) than for schools in suburban areas (34 percent) and rural areas (33 percent).
- The percentage of public schools that took at least one serious disciplinary action was higher for those where 76 percent or more of the students were students of color⁹ (40 percent) than for those where 25 percent or less of the students were students of color (31 percent).
- Additionally, the percentage of public schools that took at least one serious disciplinary action was lowest for schools where 25 percent or less of the students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL) (25 percent), compared to schools with a larger percentage of students eligible for FRPL. The percentage reported by schools with other percentages of eligible students ranged from 37 to 38 percent.¹⁰

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The Nonacademic Supports indicator consists of one construct: prevalence of mental health services in schools.

There were differences in the provision of diagnostic mental health assessments and treatment to students by locale and percentage of minority students enrolled at the school.

In 2019–20, provision of diagnostic mental health assessment services was more prevalent in schools in cities and suburban areas than in towns and rural areas.
In 2019–20, the percentages of public schools providing diagnostic or treatment services did not vary measurably by percentage of students of color enrolled. The only exception was that the percentage of public schools providing diagnostic services was lower for schools in which 25 percent or less of their enrollment was students of color (50 percent) than for schools in which 76 percent or more of their enrollment was students of color (60 percent).
The percentages of public schools providing diagnostic or treatment services did not vary measurably by percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL).

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¹National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). Monitoring Educational Equity (p. 9). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25389.

²Kutsyuruba, B., Klinger, D.A., and Hussain, A. (2015). Relationships Among School Climate, School Safety, and Student Achievement and Well-Being: A Review of the Literature. Review of Education, 3(2), 103–135. Retrieved October 17, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3043.

³Zullig, K.J., Huebner, E.S., and Patton, J.M. (2011). Relationships Among School Climate Domains and School Satisfaction. Psychology in the Schools, 48(2), 133–145. Retrieved October 17, 2019, from https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.20532.

⁴For more information on disciplinary actions by student race/ethnicity, see: de Brey, C., Musu, L., McFarland, J., Wilkinson-Flicker, S., Diliberti, M., Zhang, A., Branstetter, C., and Wang, X. (2019). Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2018 (NCES 2019-038). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved June 28, 2023 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/.

⁵Downey, D. B., and Pribesh, S. (2004). When Race Matters: Teachers’ Evaluations of Students’ Classroom Behavior. Sociology of Education, 77(4), 267–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/003804070407700401;
Bottiani, J. H., Bradshaw, C. P., & Mendelson, T. (2017). A multilevel examination of racial disparities in high school discipline: Black and white adolescents’ perceived equity, school belonging, and adjustment problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(4), 532–545. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000155; Hannon, L., DeFina, R., and Bruch, S. (2013). The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans. Race and Social Problems 5, 281–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-013-9104-z.

⁶ This domain presents a compilation of data from various sources crossing several periods of time. Within each indicator, the term “gender” or “sex” is used as presented by the original data source at the time.

⁷ Not all equity dimensions, such as race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, English learner status, and disability status, are examined for all constructs.

⁸ Serious disciplinary actions include out-of-school suspensions lasting 5 or more days, removals with no services for the remainder of the school year, and transfers to alternative schools.

⁹ The term “students of color” is being used synonymously with “minority students” in Digest table 233.12. Students of color include those who are Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and of Two or more races.

¹⁰ The percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL) programs is a proxy measure for school poverty. For more information on eligibility for FRPL and its relationship to poverty, see the NCES blog post “Free or reduced price lunch: A proxy for poverty?”

Free or reduced-price lunch Racial/ethnic group Socioeconomic status (SES)

Crime and Safety Surveys (CSS): These student surveys collect information about victimization, perceptions of crime, violence, and safety at school.
School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS): This survey includes school-level data on crime and safety.
National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments: The U.S. Department of Education created this center to help school systems develop safe and supportive learning environments.
National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS): This nationwide sample survey collects information from teachers and principals to provide descriptive data on the context of public and private elementary and secondary education and a variety of statistics on the condition of education in the United States.
ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS): These survey instruments for schools, districts, and states are used in collecting and reporting school climate data at the local level.
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS): Conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this system of surveys monitors health-related behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death and disability among youth and adults.
Spotlight 2 “School and School Neighborhood Problems”: This report presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population. The report covers topics such as victimization, school conditions, the presence of security staff at school, and criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions.