By Adam Pagnucco.
In March 2024, I wrote a six-part series on MCPS’s FY23 climate survey. MCPS released the results of its FY24 survey last year and has been recently asking for responses to a new survey. Before the new data comes in (and I will be reading it!), this series relies on FY24 data to ask this question:
Do students and staff feel safe at school?
The FY24 survey measured this issue with two different questions. Students were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: “Overall, I feel safe at school.” Allowable answers were strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. Staff were asked, “How safe do you feel in your school?” Allowable answers were extremely, quite, somewhat or not at all. Among students, 78% at elementary schools, 62% at middle schools and 38% at high schools responded to the survey. Among employees, 56% at elementary schools, 50% at middle schools and 47% at high schools responded to the survey. Parental response was in the single digits so I am not using their answers in this series.
The chart below shows the percentages of students who responded disagree or strongly disagree to the statement “Overall, I feel safe at school.”
Most students feel safe at school, especially in elementary schools. However, 28% of middle school students and 18% of high school students do not feel safe at school. As we shall see, there is significant variation in this stat across schools and among demographics.
The chart below shows the percentage of staff who responded somewhat or not at all to the question “How safe do you feel in your school?”
Most employees feel safe at schools, again especially so in elementary schools. However, 36% of middle school staff and 41% of high school staff feel somewhat or not at all safe in school. Again, there is significant variation across schools and among demographics.
We will begin looking at those variations in Part Two.