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

School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS)

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Table 32. Percentage of public elementary 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 elementary schools	30	60	19	56	37	34	14

Enrollment size
Less than 300	31	59	14	55	38	33	18
300–499	29	61	18	60	35	32	13
500–999	29	61	23	55	38	37	12
1,000 or more	35	62	13	55	24	31	10

Urbanicity
City	39	66	30	62	50	48	7
Urban fringe	25	55	12	54	30	26	18
Town	32	58	14	55	33	33	14
Rural	25	63	19	55	34	31	15

Crime level where students live¹
High	39	74	42	76	56	58	‡
Moderate	33	65	24	63	42	38	8
Low	27	56	16	52	32	30	16
Mixed	33	67	9	55	38	35	17

Percent minority enrollment¹
0–5 percent	29	60	16	56	39	32	18
6–20 percent	29	60	17	57	29	29	14
21–50 percent	24	54	12	57	33	34	15
More than 50 percent	35	65	28	57	42	40	9

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	26	46	15	50	28	27	22
21–50 percent	29	69	17	59	38	34	9
More than 50 percent	32	62	23	58	40	39	13

Percent of students below 15th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	27	51	17	53	30	26	22
6–15 percent	29	62	14	59	37	33	13
More than 15 percent	34	68	27	57	43	44	7

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	30	67	22	62	44	41	8
36–60 percent	34	61	20	59	37	34	13
More than 60 percent	24	52	14	48	28	28	20

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	46	78	28	84	65	60	2
26–50 percent	32	74	25	61	43	39	7
51–75 percent	30	59	21	62	37	34	12
More than 75 percent	25	50	13	44	28	27	21

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	37	76	30	59	48	42	13
45–55 percent	30	60	18	57	37	34	14
More than 55 percent	23	48	13	48	24	27	15

Student/teacher ratio¹,²
Less than 12	24	52	17	55	36	35	22
12–16	33	65	17	59	36	32	6
More than 16	34	64	24	57	39	37	12

Number of classroom changes¹
0–3 changes	31	63	21	50	39	38	16
4–6 changes	28	59	17	61	36	30	14
More than 6 changes	33	58	21	60	32	37	7

Use of paid law enforcement³
Regular use	36	65	28	61	43	41	9
No regular use	26	58	13	54	33	30	17

Number of serious discipline problems⁴
No problems	27	55	14	50	33	30	17
1 problem	31	70	24	65	41	36	9
2 problems	31	66	28	64	39	40	10
3 or more problems	45	75	39	77	53	58	‡

Transfers as percentage of enrollment¹,⁵
0 to 6 percent	30	53	19	44	32	28	17
6 to 11 percent	32	61	16	50	37	34	14
11 to 21 percent	33	62	28	63	39	37	13
21 percent or more	25	64	15	63	37	34	11

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions¹,⁶
No disruptions	28	59	18	56	35	34	15
Any disruptions	48	84	32	62	54	44	#

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	18	48	9	46	25	21	22
1–2 percent	30	62	17	58	39	37	13
3–5 percent	36	63	26	61	40	37	10
6–10 percent	33	68	31	62	40	41	13
More than 10 percent	38	80	22	49	52	44	‡

Prevalence of violent incidents¹,⁷
No violent incidents	27	53	16	44	31	28	22
Any violent incidents	31	65	21	64	40	38	9
# Rounds to zero.
‡ 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." 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.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.

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