Parents don't think schools are safe

In August, a CS Mott Children’s Hospital poll on child health asked participants to rate child health issues by severity: Obesity topped the list. For its new poll on schools, appropriately enough, it put out a report card.

Over a thousand parents were asked to rate their children’s school from A to F on five subjects: keeping students safe during a schoolwide emergency, keeping parents informed during an emergency, overall safety, building security, and bullying and school violence prevention.

For overall safety, 59% of parents gave their kids’ primary school an A. Only 33% gave their children’s secondary school an A, though. For all five rankings primary schools did markedly better. No secondary school did better than 46% As.

School safety is one of those issues that flares up after an incident of violence, and of course what parents feel may not be the best objective measure. And not getting an A isn’t the same as getting an F. But many feel their children are attending an institution that could be safer.