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Table 21.  Percentage of public secondary schools reporting the use of selected policies to prevent or reduce violence, by selected school characteristics: 1999–2000


School characteristic Training, supervision, or technical assistance in classroom management for teachers Review, revision, or monitoring of schoolwide discipline practices and procedures Training faculty or staff in crime prevention Reorganizing school, grades, or schedules1 Architectural environmental modifications Regularly used paid law enforcement2
All public secondary schools 65 90 35 23 35 89
             
Enrollment size            
Less than 300 43 82 16 24 26 56
300–499 69 87 28 10 25 84
500–999 66 90 37 15 39 96
1,000 or more72 94 45 32 40 100
             
Urbanicity            
City 70 90 48 39 41 99
Urban fringe 69 92 41 19 34 99
Town 65 92 35 16 34 94
Rural 58 87 22 19 34 72
             
Crime level where students live3            
High 73 100 52 60 43 100
Moderate 69 87 34 25 36 91
Low 64 90 32 19 33 87
Mixed 65 92 46 30 43 96
             
Percent minority enrollment3            
0–5 percent 58 91 24 14 32 84
6–20 percent 62 90 35 21 35 93
21–50 percent 74 89 37 19 32 86
More than 50 percent 71 91 50 40 43 99
             
Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch            
0–20 percent 63 92 33 19 34 94
21–50 percent 65 90 34 21 33 85
More than 50 percent 69 86 42 34 42 87
             
Percent of students below 15th percentile on standardized tests            
0–5 percent 67 87 31 19 35 85
6–15 percent 61 89 33 18 33 88
More than 15 percent 70 94 43 36 41 96
             
Percent of students likely to attend college            
0–35 percent 65 92 36 28 37 85
36–60 percent 62 85 29 22 34 89
More than 60 percent 67 92 39 20 35 91
             
Percent of students who consider academic achievement important            
0–25 percent 56 87 26 19 44 75
26–50 percent 62 89 29 27 31 86
51–75 percent 64 90 36 22 31 92
More than 75 percent 70 91 40 22 40 92
             
Percent male enrollment            
0–44 percent 66 85 45 31 37 88
45–55 percent 64 91 34 22 35 91
More than 55 percent 73 85 34 19 36 75
             
Student/teacher ratio3,4            
Less than 12 59 86 27 17 32 80
12–16 67 94 42 25 42 95
More than 16 69 91 37 27 36 94
             
Number of classroom changes3            
0–3 changes 73 97 48 15 34 97
4–6 changes 69 91 38 26 39 93
More than 6 changes 63 89 31 21 34 84
             
Use of paid law enforcement2            
Regular use 67 92 39 24 37 100
No regular use 45 75 7 12 24
             
Number of serious discipline problems5            
No problems 61 89 30 18 30 85
1 problem 67 90 38 25 42 89
2 problems 63 89 40 21 33 93
3 or more problems 71 93 38 32 41 95
             
Transfers as percentage of enrollment3,6            
0 to 6 percent 63 87 33 22 36 87
6 to 11 percent 65 89 34 19 31 89
11 to 21 percent 65 93 31 21 38 88
21 percent or more 68 92 41 32 36 91
             
Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions3,7            
No disruptions 63 89 32 22 37 86
Any disruptions 70 93 41 25 31 98
             
Percent of students absent without excuses            
None 48 81 29 16 28 73
1–2 percent 66 93 29 18 31 86
3–5 percent 64 86 31 22 40 92
6–10 percent 65 93 45 25 34 93
More than 10 percent 81 92 57 43 48 100
             
Prevalence of violent incidents3,8            
No violent incidents 47 76 29 13 24 64
Any violent incidents 66 91 35 23 37 91
† Not applicable.
1 For example, schools within a school, "houses" or "teams" of students.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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.
8 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." 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.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.