Table 29. Percentage of public 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 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 schools	12	47	93	92	25	45	90

Level
Elementary	15	41	90	92	27	45	89
Middle	10	61	97	96	26	46	93
Secondary	4	54	98	92	26	47	93
Combined	6	52	97	89	8	32	88

Enrollment size
Less than 300	5	41	90	89	14	37	85
300–499	11	43	93	92	20	41	90
500–999	16	52	94	94	34	49	92
1,000 or more	15	58	99	95	38	56	94

Urbanicity
City	27	56	95	94	34	49	90
Urban fringe	11	45	93	94	32	50	93
Town	8	47	89	84	17	37	88
Rural	2	43	94	92	16	39	88

Crime level where students live ¹
High	43	65	94	92	31	45	90
Moderate	23	59	98	96	36	44	92
Low	5	42	91	91	22	45	89
Mixed	17	52	97	96	25	43	96

Percent minority enrollment¹
0–5 percent	1	35	92	90	17	42	87
6–20 percent	4	39	92	92	28	49	91
21–50 percent	5	56	93	93	31	44	91
More than 50 percent	37	62	96	95	28	44	93

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	3	34	89	89	24	50	91
21–50 percent	4	48	92	92	24	46	89
More than 50 percent	26	57	97	95	27	40	91

Percent of students below 15th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	8	44	94	93	19	45	92
6–15 percent	9	43	93	92	27	46	89
More than 15 percent	21	57	93	92	29	43	89

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	20	54	97	93	27	39	92
36–60 percent	10	48	92	93	26	45	89
More than 60 percent	6	40	91	91	24	49	90

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	14	53	95	92	28	45	94
26–50 percent	10	50	95	93	23	38	89
51–75 percent	12	48	95	94	27	44	90
More than 75 percent	12	45	90	90	25	49	90

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	19	49	93	90	35	39	88
45–55 percent	10	46	93	93	25	46	90
More than 55 percent	17	52	95	90	20	40	96

Student/teacher ratio¹,²
Less than 12	9	42	95	93	22	40	91
12–16	12	50	93	93	30	44	88
More than 16	14	52	93	91	25	51	92

Number of classroom changes¹
0–3 changes	18	47	91	91	27	46	89
4–6 changes	11	47	93	92	28	46	89
More than 6 changes	8	50	97	94	20	43	94

Use of paid law enforcement ³
Regular use	15	54	95	93	31	44	92
No regular use	8	41	91	91	20	45	88

Number of serious discipline problems ⁴
No problems	10	42	91	91	23	43	88
1 problem	12	49	96	95	24	47	91
2 problems	17	59	95	92	27	44	93
3 or more problems	17	57	96	94	35	47	93

Transfers as percentage of enrollment¹,⁵
0 to 6 percent	8	42	88	87	19	44	88
6 to 11 percent	8	45	95	94	26	48	91
11 to 21 percent	11	44	95	94	27	44	89
21 percent or more	18	57	95	93	28	43	93

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions¹,⁶
No disruptions	11	46	92	92	24	45	89
Any disruptions	15	59	99	95	31	39	94

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	4	32	85	87	19	45	89
1–2 percent	9	48	95	93	23	44	90
3–5 percent	14	53	94	93	31	41	91
6–10 percent	23	57	99	93	30	48	90
More than 10 percent	25	51	95	94	32	59	89

Prevalence of violent incidents¹,⁷
No violent incidents	11	39	87	87	26	45	88
Any violent incidents	12	51	96	94	25	44	91
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. Middle schools are defined as schools in which the lowest grade is not lower than grade 4 and the highest grade is not higher than grade 9. Secondary schools are defined as schools in which the lowest grade is not lower than grade 9 and the highest grade is not higher than grade 12. Combined schools include all other combinations of grades, including K–12 schools.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.

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