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

School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS)

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Table 29. Percentage of public middle 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 middle schools	10	61	97	96	26	46	93

Enrollment size
Less than 300	4	55	94	90	12	36	90
300–499	9	61	99	98	17	31	94
500–999	9	61	98	96	33	55	95
1,000 or more	23	69	99	97	33	51	92

Urbanicity
City	24	70	98	98	29	53	95
Urban fringe	7	58	97	96	34	53	94
Town	10	64	97	95	18	31	96
Rural	2	56	97	94	17	40	90

Crime level where students live¹
High	39	75	100	100	27	53	92
Moderate	18	66	99	96	37	43	94
Low	4	57	97	95	23	47	93
Mixed	15	69	98	97	22	42	96

Percent minority enrollment¹
0–5 percent	2	51	97	96	19	45	91
6–20 percent	#	51	98	95	30	50	95
21–50 percent	6	68	96	96	29	45	95
More than 50 percent	36	78	98	96	25	43	91

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	2	49	99	96	30	50	94
21–50 percent	4	59	96	95	23	46	93
More than 50 percent	28	76	97	95	25	42	93

Percent of students below 15^th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	7	56	98	97	21	47	96
6–15 percent	6	58	97	96	25	46	93
More than 15 percent	19	70	97	94	31	46	92

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	17	72	97	95	21	45	92
36–60 percent	10	63	97	96	28	43	93
More than 60 percent	4	50	98	96	27	51	95

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	18	73	98	97	24	50	92
26–50 percent	12	61	95	93	19	43	94
51–75 percent	9	62	98	97	25	42	93
More than 75 percent	7	57	98	96	31	52	94

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	23	62	97	96	24	36	91
45–55 percent	7	61	98	96	26	47	93
More than 55 percent	14	55	96	94	21	53	100
Student/teacher ratio¹,²
Less than 12	6	52	98	96	21	38	92
12–16	9	62	97	96	30	43	92
More than 16	16	70	97	94	22	60	96

Number of classroom changes¹
0–3 changes	19	66	96	95	27	47	88
4–6 changes	15	70	97	95	28	46	93
More than 6 changes	7	58	98	97	24	47	94

Use of paid law enforcement³
Regular use	13	64	98	97	31	48	93
No regular use	3	54	95	92	14	42	95

Number of serious discipline problems⁴
No problems	6	59	97	94	20	44	91
1 problem	12	59	97	96	24	46	93
2 problems	10	62	98	96	37	46	96
3 or more problems	14	65	98	97	28	51	94

Transfers as percentage of enrollment¹,⁵
0 to 6 percent	11	56	98	97	24	46	92
6 to 11 percent	8	64	95	94	26	49	93
11 to 21 percent	7	58	98	94	24	46	92
21 percent or more	14	65	98	97	27	47	96

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions¹,⁶
No disruptions	9	61	97	96	24	46	93
Any disruptions	17	66	98	96	33	47	94

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	4	57	96	94	19	49	99
1–2 percent	8	61	97	96	25	44	91
3–5 percent	10	60	98	97	30	44	93
6–10 percent	19	65	98	95	28	50	92
More than 10 percent	31	64	100	97	26	57	91

Prevalence of violent incidents¹,⁷
No violent incidents	11	55	97	91	27	46	91
Any violent incidents	10	62	97	96	26	46	94
# Rounds to zero.
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." 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.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.

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