Indicator: School safety Breadcrumb Home Indicators School Safety Definition Students feel physically, mentally, and emotionally safe at school or campus (that is, safe from both physical threats and violence, as well as bullying and cyberbullying). Recommended Metric(s) K–12: Percentage of students reporting high levels of physical, mental, and emotional safety in school climate surveysExample InstrumentsThe U.S. Department of Education ED School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS)The Panorama Student Survey (School Safety subscale)Not finding an instrument that suits your needs? Visit EdInstruments.org for more measurement tools.Postsecondary: Percentage of students reporting physical safety and freedom from harassment and discrimination in campus surveys, such as the National Survey of Student EngagementExample InstrumentsNational Survey of Student EngagementNot finding an instrument that suits your needs? Visit EdInstruments.org for more measurement tools. Type(s) of Data Needed Administrative data; surveys Why it matters School safety is a core component of school and campus climate, both of which are linked to higher attendance and academic achievement.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Yet research demonstrates disparities in students’ feelings of safety according to their race and ethnicity. For example, one study found that students in schools serving predominantly Black and Latino populations report feeling less safe and having less positive peer interactions than those at schools with predominantly White and Asian populations, on average.8 Even within the same schools and homerooms, Black and Latino students report feeling less safe than their White and Asian peers.9, 10 According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, 1 in 7 Black students and 1 in 10 Indigenous students feel physically unsafe on college campuses, compared to 1 in 17 Asian students and 1 in 20 White or Latino students.11 What to know about measurement Measuring students’ feelings about school or campus safety requires administering student surveys, and a growing number of schools and colleges do so. In a 2020 review of states’ Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans, 16 states were administering or piloting school climate or engagement student surveys.12 At the postsecondary level, 601 colleges and universities participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement in 2020.13 Both school and campus climate surveys typically include questions related to students’ feelings of safety. However, different survey instruments may be used. We have identified and suggested tools with an evidence base; however, other instruments may also be appropriate. The use of different instruments and surveyed grades in K–12 can reduce the comparability of this indicator across contexts. For example, California surveys students in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11, whereas South Carolina surveys students in grades 3–12. More than half of the states using surveys for ESSA administer them to students as early as grade 3, although some researchers caution against surveying young children who may not understand the meaning of the questions.14 Care should be taken to ensure the instruments used are reliable, valid, and developmentally appropriate. Finally, as with all surveys, data users should pay attention to response rates in interpreting and reporting school or campus climate survey data to ensure respondents are representative of the population of students.At the postsecondary level, campus safety can be measured more feasibly using data on the number of reported on-campus crimes per 1,000 students, which are publicly available through the U.S. Department of Education's Campus Safety and Security Reporting System.15 However, administrative records often underreport instances of victimization, so anonymous surveys can be a useful complement to measure perceptions of safety and experiences that students may not have reported to the police. Source frameworks This indicator appeared in nine source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our emphasis on physical, mental, and emotional safety is consistent with recommendations from the Alliance for Resource Equity, the National Education Association, and the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA). Although source frameworks focused primarily on school safety in K–12 contexts, we recommend broadening this measure to include postsecondary settings as well. References 12Jordan, P. W., & Hamilton, L. S. (2020). Walking a fine line: School climate surveys in state ESSA plans. FutureEd, Georgetown University. https://www.future-ed.org/school-climate-surveys-in-state-essa-plans/13National Survey of Student Engagement. (2021). What does NSSE do? https://nsse.indiana.edu/nsse/about-nsse/index.html14Bolt, D. M., Wang, Y. C., Meyer, R. H., & Pier, L. (2019). An IRT mixture model for rating scale confusion associated with negatively worded items in measures of social-emotional learning. Applied Measurement in Education, 33(4), 331–348. https://doi.org/10.1080/08957347.2020.178914015Office of Postsecondary Education. (n.d.). The tools you need for campus safety and security analysis. Campus Safety and Security, U.S. Department of Education. https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/1Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. Q. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. University of Chicago Press. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/2019-02/organizing-schools-improvement-prologue_0.pdf2Milam, M. J., Furr-Holden, C. D. M., & Leaf, P. J. (2010). Perceived school and neighborhood safety, neighborhood violence and academic achievement in urban school children. Urban Review, 42(5), 458–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-010-0165-73Thapa, A., Cohen, J., Guffey, S., & Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. (2013). A review of school climate research. Review of Educational Research, 83(3), 357–385. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543134839074Gietz, C., & McIntosh, K. (2014). Relations between student perceptions of their school environment and academic achievement. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 29(3), 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/08295735145404155Demiroz, S. (2020). The relationship between secondary schools students’ perceptions of school climate, their school belonging, and their academic achievement. Education Reform Journal, 5(2). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1282668.pdf6Daily, S., Mann, M. J., Kristjansson, A. L., Smith, M. L., & Zullig, K. J. (2019). School climate and academic achievement in middle and high school students. Journal of School Health, 89(3), 173–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.127267Jones, T. M. (2018). Understanding race differences in academic outcomes, school climate and social emotional learning to promote racial equity and policy reform [Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington]. University of Washington University Libraries. https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/42913/Jones_washington_0250E_19259.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y8Steinberg, M. P., Allensworth, E., & Johnson, D. W. (2011). Student and teacher safety in Chicago public schools. The roles of community context and school social organization. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED5194149Voight, A., Hanson, T., O’Malley, M., & Adekanye, L. (2015). The racial school climate gap: Within-school disparities in students’ experiences of school safety, support, and connectedness. American Journal of Community Psychology, 56(3-4), 252–267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-015-9751-x10Lacoe, J. R. (2015). Unequally safe: The race gap in school safety. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 13(2), 143–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/154120401453265911Center for Postsecondary Research. (2016). Engagement insights: Survey findings on the quality of undergraduate education—Annual results 2016, National Survey of Student Engagement. University of Indiana School of Education, Center for Postsecondary Research. https://doi.org/10.5967/61q3-fc75