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File photograph: Police officers at Hayward High during a lockdown following a report of an...
PALO ALTO -- More than 4 percent of seventh-graders have brought a gun to school, more than 9 percent of ninth-graders have brought a knife or other non-firearm weapon to school, and more than 24 percent of high school juniors had driven after drinking or ridden with a friend who had been drinking.
This somewhat troubling and sometimes startling portrait of the lives of children in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties is part of a trove of data released last week on the safety, well-being and opportunities for youth in California.
Among findings of the Kidsdata report, compiled from various sources by the Lucile Packard Foundation For Children's Health:
  • 39 percent of seventh-graders in Santa Clara County and 46 percent in San Mateo County said they had been bullied in the past 12 months at school. The numbers in both counties go down for ninth- and 11th-graders.

  • Nearly 6 percent of seventh-graders and 8 percent of ninth-graders in Santa Clara County