Four in 10 educators feel less safe in their schools now than they did five years ago, according to a new survey by the EdWeek Research Center. School shootings factor heavily into their fears, but so does a swirl of other dynamics, from an angry political climate to a rise in student and parent aggression.
The survey of 875 district and school leaders and teachers, administered online the second week of June, only a few weeks after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, unearthed a complex picture of their sense of safety. While 40 percent said they felt less safe than five years ago, 38 percent said their sense of safety hadn鈥檛 changed in that period. Two in 10 said they felt safer.
At the same time, in another question, 6 in 10 teachers and administrators said that fear of a 鈥減urposeful mass homicide鈥� at their schools鈥攂y an outsider or a student鈥攚as a key factor in their worries about safety.
Suzanne Carter has taught high school English in Rancho Cucamonga, a foothills town an hour鈥檚 drive east of Los Angeles, for 25 years. She worries about a school shooting on her campus because there are 鈥渟o many access points鈥� with too few security guards to monitor them. But she鈥檚 increasingly fearful of her own students.
When the teenagers returned for fully in-person instruction this year, they 鈥渃reated a new threat鈥� with misbehavior so intense that it seemed they鈥檇 鈥渁lmost lost their humanness,鈥� Carter said. One student who鈥檇 been in scuffles last year drew blood this year by kicking another student in the head with his heavy boots, she said.
In her own classroom, two students got into a physical altercation, but neither was removed from her classroom, in part due to state rules requiring schools to explore 鈥渙ther means of correction鈥� for disruptive students, she said. 鈥淚 just worry, is this the day they turn it on me?鈥� Carter said.
Carter鈥檚 experience echoes through the EdWeek survey. Educators who said they felt less safe than five years ago cited a range of reasons: too few school resource officers, severe behavior issues among students, anti-mask or anti-vaccine sentiment, lax school discipline policies, angry parents. They also cited a general sense of unsafety, with one respondent noting: 鈥淭he world feels less stable.鈥�
Teachers and administrators who reported feeling safer in school than five years ago cited a range of reasons, too: stepped-up safety training for staff members, the presence of school-resource or law enforcement officers, locked or monitored doors, secured perimeters, video cameras, and, in some cases, armed staff members.
Glenn Bryant, the principal of Ardmore High School, in a small Alabama town near the Tennessee state line, said he feels safe in his school because of its stepped-up security measures. His building has a full-time school-resource officer. Every door now requires staffers to scan their ID cards to enter, and every room has a security box on the wall that can trigger sirens and flashing blue lights with the touch of a fingertip. The boxes also contain a baton and pepper spray 鈥渇or close-up defense,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 spent 22 years as a Navy reservist and a year in Iraq,鈥� Bryant said. 鈥淭here have been times in my life I鈥檝e been scared. But never in school.鈥�
Bryant also swears by the careful attention to relationships in his building. With only 125 students per grade in his junior/senior high school, adults can cultivate connections that pay off when it comes to security. Recently, someone in the school community tipped Bryant and his team that a student had posted a photo of himself with a gun on social media. A search of his car found the loaded pistol in the glove compartment.
The EdWeek survey results show that even though many educators鈥� sense of safety has declined, mass shootings are grabbing the headlines, and reports of student aggression are soaring, only a small proportion actually say they feel unsafe in their schools.
When they were asked for a right-now snapshot鈥攈ow safe do you typically feel in your schools?鈥攐nly 15 percent of teachers and administrators said they felt unsafe. Among the other 85 percent, half said they were 鈥渧ery鈥� safe and half said they were 鈥渟omewhat鈥� safe.
Ron Astor, who studies the dynamics of school violence as a professor of social welfare at the University of California-Los Angeles, said research on the subject is rife with such paradoxes. Since violent crime against students at school , Astor said he鈥檇 expect increases in the proportions of people who report feeling safe at school, but that isn鈥檛 the case.
In research on school safety, educators often report feeling safe in their own schools, he said, which could explain the more upbeat findings in the EdWeek survey. But safety is highly subjective, and can be shaped by events in the larger world, and that could explain the darker findings in the survey, Astor said.
Most educators report worry about mass homicides
Six in 10 respondents to the EdWeek survey cited large-scale school shootings as a key safety concern. When asked what sources of potential violence worried them most, 63 percent chose 鈥渕ass homicide鈥� by outsiders or students.
Nineteen percent said they worried about violence stemming from student-on-student conflict, and 11 percent said they feared conflict between students and outsiders. Purposeful mass homicide by a current or former employee was cited as a fear by only 2 percent of respondents.
School shootings, especially like the attack in Uvalde, are statistically rare. But the powerful, visceral impact of shooting rampages deeply shapes society鈥檚 views and drives the debates and legislative responses that follow.
Asked specifically about gun violence, however, 55 percent of the survey respondents said schools are safe from that threat. Two thirds said their schools have safety measures in place to prevent a school shooting, and 6 in 10 said their schools鈥攁nd law enforcement鈥攃ould stop a school shooting before anyone is hurt.
That鈥檚 not how Stephanie Derby feels. She teaches middle school English in a small town in southeastern Minnesota, but she worries about strangers having easy access to her pre-K-12 building. Staff members, working in 鈥渁 town where everyone knows everyone,鈥� often prop open the school鈥檚 doors. There are no school-resource or law enforcement officers around. She is increasingly uneasy when her students see reports of faraway school shootings on the news, and ask her if their school is safe.
She鈥檚 also worried for her own personal safety. At a parent-teacher conference in November, a student picked up a desk and threw it at her, with both parents present. At 52, she鈥檚 starting to wonder if she should retire earlier than she鈥檇 planned. 鈥淓very day I mull it over,鈥� Derby said.
In the small town of Jonesville, La., Benny Vault Jr., worries less that one of his students will get shot at school than that they鈥檒l be plucked off the campus by a stranger. A longtime football coach and physical education teacher at Block High School, Vault said his community has been fighting against human trafficking, and his school doesn鈥檛 feel secure enough in the face of that danger.
鈥淲e have an open campus, no fencing,鈥� he said. 鈥淪omeone could just walk right in off the street.鈥�
Threads of danger, fusing into uneasiness
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Adrienne Khan is concerned about a possible school shooting; her elementary school is in the same county where 14 students died in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in 2018. But she鈥檚 also worried about the adult visitors who flow through the building daily.
鈥淚t鈥檚 great that the gates and the doors are locked, and we have security guards, but the fact of the matter is, they let [visitors] through the doors, and you鈥檙e carrying a big bag, and how do I know what鈥檚 in the bag?鈥� said Khan, who teaches 4th grade at Bayview Elementary. 鈥淚 just have a level of distrust of everybody now.鈥�
Some of that distrust is fueled by the media drumbeat of mass shootings. Some is bred by incidents with angry parents. Not long ago, school officials had to call police when a parent and a grandparent came to blows outside the school over a child鈥檚 pickup arrangements, Khan said. A recent meeting she attended over a child鈥檚 individualized education plan had to be quickly disbanded when one of the parents started screaming at staff members, she said.
Florida鈥檚 new laws restricting what can be taught in the classroom about gender and sexuality have also woven anxiety into her days, Khan said. 鈥淚鈥檓 always on edge about what I can teach, and not sure who鈥檚 going to come in and yell at me,鈥� she said.
Derby, the Minnesota teacher, said she never used to keep her classroom doors locked. But after the Uvalde shooting, 鈥渢hat changed.鈥�
Data analysis for this article was provided by the EdWeek Research Center. Learn more about the center鈥檚 work.
