Table 32. Percentage of public secondary schools reporting their efforts to reduce or prevent crime were limited by specified non-school-level factors, by selected school characteristics: 1999

Crime and Safety Surveys

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Table 32. Percentage of public secondary schools reporting their efforts to reduce or prevent crime were limited by specified non-school-level factors, by selected school characteristics: 1999–2000

School characteristic	Teacher contracts	Inadequate funds	Fear of district or state reprisal	Federal policies on disciplining disabled students	Other federal policies on discipline and safety	State or district policies on discipline and safety	Percent of schools that did not feel they were limited in any way
All public secondary schools	26	66	20	64	41	38	8

Enrollment size
Less than 300	25	63	24	56	41	40	11
300–499	22	64	16	66	40	37	5
500–999	23	65	16	63	38	36	8
1,000 or more	30	69	23	67	42	37	8

Urbanicity
City	31	71	24	60	36	35	9
Urban fringe	29	65	24	67	43	39	7
Town	24	65	14	68	42	40	5
Rural	21	64	17	61	40	36	11

Crime level where students live¹
High	26	78	23	62	40	35	‡
Moderate	32	73	30	61	44	39	5
Low	25	64	17	65	42	38	10
Mixed	25	66	23	65	30	31	7

Percent minority enrollment¹
0–5 percent	24	66	18	63	38	37	11
6–20 percent	27	65	21	68	46	41	7
21–50 percent	25	64	18	68	42	38	8
More than 50 percent	28	69	24	55	37	34	6

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	26	64	19	64	38	38	8
21–50 percent	26	66	20	65	43	38	9
More than 50 percent	28	71	24	61	42	37	6

Percent of students below 15^th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	23	59	15	58	36	29	12
6–15 percent	28	67	23	68	43	42	8
More than 15 percent	27	72	22	64	43	40	5

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	22	69	21	63	39	39	6
36–60 percent	33	67	23	64	46	39	8
More than 60 percent	24	64	18	64	38	36	9

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	19	68	24	64	39	37	4
26–50 percent	26	70	18	59	36	35	8
51–75 percent	31	70	23	68	45	40	7
More than 75 percent	23	60	18	63	39	37	11

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	32	70	28	56	43	42	4
45–55 percent	25	66	19	66	42	39	8
More than 55 percent	31	64	28	47	26	21	11

Student/teacher ratio¹,²
Less than 12	24	67	22	62	41	39	7
12–16	26	68	19	67	40	38	10
More than 16	31	67	22	66	41	37	7

Number of classroom changes¹
0–3 changes	24	67	16	59	30	29	11
4–6 changes	26	67	18	64	36	31	7
More than 6 changes	26	63	24	64	46	43	8

Use of paid law enforcement³
Regular use	26	67	19	64	41	38	8
No regular use	32	62	30	63	41	36	13

Number of serious discipline problems⁴
No problems	20	56	17	54	32	30	14
1 problem	27	74	24	68	48	44	5
2 problems	19	65	16	71	37	32	6
3 or more problems	43	79	28	74	55	51	2

Transfers as percentage of enrollment¹,⁵
0 to 6 percent	25	65	21	60	40	39	9
6 to 11 percent	25	61	16	62	39	35	12
11 to 21 percent	29	73	25	66	42	41	5
21 percent or more	24	69	20	73	43	36	6

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions¹,⁶
No disruptions	23	62	18	62	40	36	10
Any disruptions	28	71	25	67	41	40	4

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	17	61	17	82	57	59	10
1–2 percent	22	64	16	60	34	31	10
3–5 percent	26	67	22	62	41	35	8
6–10 percent	32	69	27	66	42	42	7
More than 10 percent	37	73	17	67	42	38	‡

Prevalence of violent incidents¹,⁷
No violent incidents	27	45	24	38	28	26	20
Any violent incidents	26	68	20	67	42	39	7
‡ 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." 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.

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