Parents' Concern About School Safety Remains Elevated
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Parental fear same now as after Newtown and Parkland school shootings
- 12% of parents say child has expressed worry about safety at school
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As summer winds down and children from kindergarten through high school head back to school, 34% of parents remain fearful for their safety. At the same time, fewer (12%) report that their school-aged children have expressed concern about feeling unsafe at school.
The current level of parental worry is similar to last August's 35% reading, which was taken about six months after 17 students and staff members were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It is also on par with the 33% of parents who were concerned about their children's safety at school in August 2013, roughly eight months after 26 students and staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The latest readings are from an Aug. 1-14 Gallup poll, with interviewing spanning two non-school-related mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, which together claimed the lives of 31 people in one weekend. Although Gallup's question about school safety does not refer specifically to gun violence, parents' fear has spiked in the past after high-profile mass shootings, indicating they do have these kinds of threats in mind when answering the question.
The highest level of parental fear, 55%, was recorded in April 1999, one day after 13 people were killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. By the time parents were sending their children back to school that year, fear had dipped, but only slightly, to 47%, the highest August figure in Gallup's trend. By August 2000, it had dropped to 26%.
Parental fear for their children's safety in school fluctuated over the next two decades but rose in the immediate aftermath of the school shootings at Santana High School in Santee, California, in 2001 and at an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in 2006. The lowest August reading is 15% in 2008.
This pattern of heightened levels of concern after such an event occurs, followed by a gradual decline as it fades from memory, is common in Gallup trends. Thus, it is not clear if the stability between the 2018 and 2019 readings reflects sustained concern from the CONTINUE READING: Parents' Concern About School Safety Remains Elevated