WAYS TO MEASURE

• Percentage of Students Ages 12 to 18 Who Report that in the Previous Six Months:
  • That they avoided one or more places in school
  • That street gangs were present in school
  • That they feared an attack at school or on the way to school
• Percentage of Students Ages 12 to 18 Reporting the Presence of Street Gangs at School by Household Income

WHAT THE DATA SHOWS: MINNESOTA

March 2008 - Snapshots on Minnesota Youth: School Safety - What are the victimization and disciplinary issues impacting school safety in Minnesota? Minnesota Department of Public Safety and Minnesota Department of Education.

According to the Minnesota Student Survey 2007:

• 6th graders were most likely to report that they had been teased or excluded; over half (55%) reported they had been teased or excluded in the past month. Conversely, 55 percent also reported that they had teased or excluded others.
  
  
• 9th graders reported the highest rates of bullying others. 12th graders expressed the lowest incidence of bullying behaviors overall.
  
  
• Females were more likely to report being bullied monthly or weekly; males were slightly more likely than females to report being bullied daily and were somewhat more likely to report bullying others daily.

Roughly 40 to 50 percent of 9th grade students from all racial backgrounds acknowledged teasing or excluding other students in the past 30 days.

Based on data from the Minnesota Disciplinary Incident Reporting System in the 2006-07 school year:

• there were 857 incidents of bullying resulting in an out-of-school suspension or expulsion, approximately 1.2 percent of the total disciplinary incidents for the school year. 
  
  
• 3.1 percent of the total incidents were related to harassment (2,249 incidents) and
  
  
• 4 percent were related to verbal abuse (2,983 incidents). 

Bullying behavior has remained constant between 6 and 7 percent of incidents report in the system until 2005-2006 when it peaked at 9.3%. Currently it has decreased to 8.3 percent of total disciplinary incidents. 

Winter 2006 - School Safety: Lessons Learned - Strategies for collaborating on school safety, positive school climates and crisis response plans, U.S. Attorney’s Office Minnesota District, Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

Winter 2006 - Recess: not just fun and games - Trends to cut recess times or eliminate recess altogether frustrate University of Minnesota researcher Anthony Pellegrini, UMNnews.

National

January 2006 - Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool - The EPA has developed a unique software tool to help school districts evaluate and manage their school facilities for key environmental, safety and health issues, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

February 2005 - Stopping School Violence: The Latest Trends - Many principals are looking at alternatives to having children sit in rooms by themselves as punishment for misbehaving. This form of detention removes the student from the learning process and doesn’t address the root of the behavior that landed him in detention in the first place. GreatSchools.net.

December 2004 - Bullying—Is It Part of Growing Up, or Part of School Violence?, Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

September 2004 - School Connectedness – Strengthening Health and Education Outcomes for Teenagers - Students are more likely to succeed when they feel connected to school. School connection is the belief by students that adults in the school care about their learning as well as about them as individuals, Journal of School Health. 

Based on current research evidence, the most effective strategies for increasing the likelihood that students will be connected to school include:

• Implementing high standards and expectations, and providing academic support to all students.
• Applying fair and consistent disciplinary policies that are collectively agreed upon and fairly enforced.
• Creating trusting relationships among students, teachers, staff, administrators, and families.
• Hiring and supporting capable teachers skilled in content, teaching techniques, and classroom management to meet each learner’s needs.
• Fostering high parent/family expectations for school performance and school completion.
• Ensuring that every student feels close to at least one supportive adult at school.

July 2004 - Violence-Related Behaviors Among High School Students - United States, 1991-2003 - Major findings:  school violence has gone down, but the number of students avoiding school because they didn't feel safe has gone up "significantly" over the past 10 years. 5.4 percent of students surveyed in 2003 had not gone to school at least one day in the previous month because of safety concerns up from 4.4 percent in 1993. Nearly one in 10 high school students reported being threatened or injured by a weapon on school property in the previous year. But the report also showed physical fighting and weapons possession on school grounds declined between 1991 and 2003, Center for Disease Control.

May 2004 - Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good?, Public Agenda Online

July 2001 - Blueprints for Violence Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.