Table 5. Number and percentage of public elementary schools reporting incidents involving theft, possession of a firearm, and possession of a knife or sharp object with the number of incidents reported, by selected school characteristics: 1999

School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS)

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Table 5. Number and percentage of public elementary schools reporting incidents involving theft, possession of a firearm, and possession of a knife or sharp object with the number of incidents reported, by selected school characteristics: 1999–2000

ï¿½School characteristic	Theft/larceny¹			Possess firearm/explosive device²			Possess knife or sharp object
ï¿½School characteristic	Num- ber of schools	Per- cent of schools	Num- ber of incidents	Num- ber of schools	Per- cent of schools	Num- ber of incidents	Num- ber of schools	Per- cent of schools	Num- ber of incidents
All public elementary schools	15,111	30	42,179	877	2	3,039	17,219	35	34,737

Enrollment size
Less than 300	2,620	20	5,294	‡	‡	‡	3,267	25	4,147
300–499	5,031	31	12,539	‡	‡	‡	4,938	30	9,875
500–999	7,043	37	22,191	609	3	2,722	8,238	44	18,772
1,000 or more	416	27	2,156	‡	‡	‡	776	48	1,943

Urbanicity
City	5,652	43	16,748	321	2	321	6,322	48	15,505
Urban fringe	4,490	27	11,577	416	2	2,513	4,478	27	8,814
Town	1,559	28	5,622	#	#	#	2,227	40	4,523
Rural	3,410	24	8,232	‡	‡	‡	4,192	29	5,895

Crime level where students live³
High	2,454	58	8,722	229	5	2,326	2,433	58	6,820
Moderate	3,506	37	11,325	‡	‡	‡	4,348	46	10,322
Low	7,737	24	18,460	467	1	533	9,165	28	15,023
Mixed	1,414	35	3,673	#	#	#	1,200	30	2,500

Percent minority enrollment³
0–5 percent	3,656	26	9,064	#	#	#	3,557	25	6,752
6–20 percent	2,413	22	7,179	‡	‡	‡	3,090	29	6,137
21–50 percent	2,568	27	5,901	244	3	2,292	3,819	39	6,700
More than 50 percent	6,182	42	19,080	430	3	479	6,573	45	14,968

Percent of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch
0–20 percent	2,758	22	6,005	‡	‡	‡	2,804	23	5,231
21–50 percent	4,632	29	12,248	224	1	290	4,934	31	9,040
More than 50 percent	7,721	36	23,926	515	2	2,612	9,481	44	20,467

Percent of students below 15th percentile on standardized tests
0–5 percent	3,467	22	7,325	.	.	0	4,392	28	8,118
6–15 percent	5,185	27	12,905	390	2	390	6,202	33	12,054
More than 15 percent	6,459	42	21,950	486	3	2,648	6,625	43	14,565

Percent of students likely to attend college
0–35 percent	6,343	39	18,115	546	3	2,708	6,705	41	15,824
36–60 percent	5,436	30	15,586	‡	‡	‡	6,457	36	12,218
More than 60 percent	3,333	22	8,478	‡	‡	‡	4,058	27	6,696

Percent of students who consider academic achievement important
0–25 percent	1,743	50	4,840	‡	‡	‡	1,645	47	3,166
26–50 percent	4,959	44	17,427	322	3	2,419	4,289	38	8,508
51–75 percent	4,127	27	9,696	‡	‡	‡	5,233	34	11,570
More than 75 percent	4,283	22	10,216	396	2	396	6,052	30	11,493

Percent male enrollment
0–44 percent	2,339	38	4,230	‡	‡	‡	1,866	30	3,231
45–55 percent	11,129	30	33,124	726	2	775	13,521	37	28,116
More than 55 percent	1,643	25	4,825	‡	‡	‡	1,832	28	3,390

Student/teacher ratio³,⁴
Less than 12	4,344	26	11,325	173	1	239	5,980	36	12,540
12–16	5,524	34	15,648	190	1	190	5,322	33	11,531
More than 16	4,959	34	14,923	513	3	2,610	5,692	38	10,320

Number of classroom changes³
0–3 changes	5,719	28	14,042	‡	‡	‡	6,253	31	13,362
4–6 changes	6,792	30	20,292	384	2	2,481	8,457	37	17,571
More than 6 changes	2,290	38	7,226	290	5	290	2,206	37	3,500

Use of paid law enforcement⁵
Regular use	7,286	40	24,459	437	2	2,550	7,980	43	17,147
No regular use	7,825	25	17,721	439	1	488	9,239	29	17,590

Number of serious discipline problems⁶
No problems	8,135	25	17,171	566	2	680	9,204	28	16,641
1 problem	2,641	30	7,046	180	2	180	2,987	34	5,428
2 problems	1,983	47	7,868	‡	‡	‡	2,348	55	5,184
3 or more problems	2,352	56	10,095	#	#	#	2,680	64	7,484

Transfers as percentage of enrollment³,⁷
0 to 6 percent	2,962	30	9,232	‡	‡	‡	2,133	21	4,404
6 to 11 percent	3,252	30	7,093	315	3	315	2,815	26	5,068
11 to 21 percent	3,110	27	9,973	‡	‡	‡	4,337	37	7,719
21 percent or more	5,497	35	15,420	393	3	2,490	7,205	46	16,198

Prevalence of schoolwide disruptions³,⁸
No disruptions	13,295	30	35,884	877	2	3,039	15,061	34	30,133
Any disruptions	777	34	3,514	#	#	#	1,111	49	2,936

Percent of students absent without excuses
None	1,831	18	4,329	#	#	#	1,805	17	3,486
1–2 percent	5,772	27	14,307	376	2	442	7,450	35	13,804
3–5 percent	5,180	40	14,024	218	2	267	5,095	39	9,222
6–10 percent	1,683	51	7,389	197	6	197	2,054	62	5,749
More than 10 percent	645	32	2,130	‡	‡	‡	815	40	2,476
# Rounds to zero.
‡ Reporting standards not met.
¹ Theft/larceny (taking things over $10 without personal confrontation) was defined for respondents as, "the unlawful taking of another person's property without personal confrontation, threat, violence, or bodily harm. Included are pocket picking, stealing purse or backpack (if left unattended or no force was used to take it from owner), theft from a building, theft from a motor vehicle or motor vehicle parts or accessories, theft of bicycles, theft from vending machines, and all other types of theft."
² Firearm/explosive device was defined as, "any weapon that is designed to (or may readily be converted to) expel a projectile by the action of an explosive. This includes guns, bombs, grenades, mines, rockets, missiles, pipe bombs, or similar devices designed to explode and capable of causing bodily harm or property damage."
³ Some schools are omitted from these categories because of missing data on their school characteristics. For this reason, the detailed results do not sum to the totals. See appendix J of 2000 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) Detailed Data Documentation (NCES 2004-307) for further information.
⁴ Student/teacher ratio was calculated by dividing the total number of students enrolled in the school by the total number of full-time equivalent teachers. The total number of full-time equivalent teachers is a combination of the full-time and part-time teachers, including special education teachers, with an adjustment to compensate for the part-time status.
⁵ Schools were included asï¿½regularly using paid law enforcement if they reportedï¿½the use of paid law enforcement during any of the following times: at any time during school hours, while students were arriving or leaving, at selected school activities (e.g., athletic and social events, open houses, science fairs), or at any other time that the respondent specified.
⁶ Serious discipline problems is a count of discipline problems reported by principals. These discipline problems include student racial tensions, student bullying, student verbal abuse of teachers, widespread disorder in classrooms, and student acts of disrespect for teachers. If a principal reported that any of these problems occurred daily or weekly in their school, each was counted once in the total number of serious discipline problems. Undesirable gang activities and undesirable cult or extremist group activities were also counted once as a problem if the principal reported that these events occurred at all in their school.
⁷ Transfers as a percentage of enrollment combines the number of students who were transferred to a school and the number of students who were transferred from a school, divided by the total number of students enrolled in the school.
⁸ Schoolwide disruptions include actions that disrupted school activities such as bomb threats or anthrax threats. Respondents were instructed to exclude all fire alarms, including false alarms.
NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. "At school/at your school" was defined for respondents as including activities happening in school buildings, on school grounds, on school buses, and at places that are holding school-sponsored events or activities. Respondents were instructed to, unless the survey specified otherwise, only respond for those times that were during normal school hours or when school activities/events were in session. Elementary schools are defined as schools in which the lowest grade is not higher than grade 3 and the highest grade is not higher than grade 8.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2000.

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