November 17, 2009: Greenwood, Arkansas – Associated Press and Southwest Times Record articles indicated that on October 1, 2009, an elementary school principal delayed reporting a suicide threat by a school employee for an hour and 45 minutes. The employee reportedly made the suicide threat when told of potential employee disciplinary action around 3:00pm, but police were not notified until 4:45pm. During this time, the employee reportedly was unsupervised and remained in the school with children present. When officers arrived, the principal reportedly complained about the number of officers that had responded. She later reportedly apologized. It took police some time to locate the employee who, went found, was alone and admitted having suicidal thoughts.
September 21-23, 2009: Miami-Dade’s CBS-4 I-Team presented a multi-story investigation into major discrepancies between school police data in Miami-Dade Schools and school violence data for the school district posted on the Florida State Department of Education’s web site. In one example, police found and reported 152 weapons during the 2006-07 school year, but the State DOE web site showed zero weapons in the district. The State web site showed 21 school drug cases during that year, while school police reports showed 177 for the same time period. One particularly interesting section of the I-Team story reads: “Several years ago DOE just posted the data straight from each school district on its website. But a few years back it got a grant to have Florida State University’s Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research “massage” and “clean” the data before putting it up on the website. The cost to taxpayers to do that and further complicate and muddy this violence picture for parents? $1.5 million dollars. The $1.5 million was paid for over a three year period by a federal grant. It’s a grant that expired in August, 2008.”
September 4, 2009: The Daily Journal in Vineland, New Jersey, reported State Department of Education officials determined school officials did not properly report incidents of school violence in the 2007-08 school year. The investigation stemmed from a lawsuit by a district assistant principal who claims his civil rights were violated after he spoke out about unreported incidents of violence at a school. The State indicated 18 of 58 incidents the assistant principal identified should have been reported to the State, but were not, according to the State report. The lawsuit was pending at the time of this report.
August 18, 2009: Philadelphia news stations carried stories of the elimination of the Office of Safe Schools Advocate for Philadelphia, Jack Stollsteimer, a former assistant US Attorney appointed to monitor school crime and violence in Philadelphia Schools. While the State claimed the cuts were for budgetary reasons, Stollsteimer alleged the cuts were due to his advocacy and unwillingness to not document failures by the school district to report school crimes.
November 12, 2008: Houston, Texas, KHOU I-Team reviewed police reports from over three years for 21 county schools. The investigation found major discrepancies between what was reported locally and what was reported to the Texas Education Agency, the state’s education department. In one example cited in the story, the Crosby ISD in the 2005-2006 school year did not report one fighting incident to the state. But police records showed 53 fight reports in the school district during that time. Police made seven arrests for drug possession, but Crosby ISD reported zero students disciplined for drugs in their report to the state. In another district, a case reported by the police and prosecuted as a sexual assault was reported to the state as a “violation of student code of conduct.” The I-Team found other examples as well.
June 29, 2008: The Florida Sun Sentinel reported discrepancies in school crime data in two state reports. For Palm Beach County Schools, the Indicators Report showed property-related crimes at county schools rose from 326 in 2005-06 to 2,093 in 2006-07, a 542 percent increase. Yet the Safety Incident Report for the same time period shows an increase in vandalism, theft and breaking-and-entering cases from 329 to 346, a 5.2 percent rise.
January 17, 2008, Philadelphia Inquirer story reported that a state-appointed school safety monitor reported that two incidents at an elementary school were not reported to police as required. One incident involved a student with a 5-inch knife and the other involved a student attempting to stab a classmate with scissors. In the same week, the monitor reported that a different school failed to report a serious assault and failed to remove the student who committed the assault from the school. The monitor was quoted as saying that the incidents were part of a larger problem of a failing disciplinary system in the district.
November 27, 2007, Associated Press story out of Jackson, Mississippi, reported on discrepancies between incident numbers reported by state officials versus that reported by local school officials. One example cited was state information obtained by The Clarion-Ledger newspaper showed Jackson Public Schools had more than 11,000 total suspensions and expulsions the prior school year, while the district said it had 540. The district said that the difference was because the district only counted the most serious disciplinary cases that came before the school board.
October 14-16, 2007, Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) series reported on how disciplined teachers remained on the job and the information was kept confidential and not available to those seeking it. A number of specific cases were discussed. The article referenced how both local districts and state education department practices made it difficult, if not impossible, for parents and others to obtain information on disciplined teachers.
October 6, 2007, Washington Post article reported that Prince George’s County Schools was conducting an internal investigation into its school security department incident reporting processes due to discrepancies between security reports and suspensions for serious incidents. In 2005-06 school year, the district reported more than 22,000 suspensions to the state, but the security office only filed 1,679 reports. While many of the suspensions were not serious enough to require security reports, gaps still existed. The story reported that 158 students were suspended for arson, fire, and explosives in 2005-06, but the security office only filed 13 such reports. The district suspended 148 students for sex offenses, but the security office filed only 20 reports. The district suspended 492 students for taking guns, knives, and other weapons to school, but the security office only filed 311 reports.
October 6, 2007, TheIndyChannel.com reported on an incident in Trafal Gar, Indiana, where two middle school boys had been fighting the week prior during class and a 13-year-old was stabbed with a stitch puller he was holding in science. The victim required stitches. Parents of the victim were upset that school officials did not report the incident to police. The school’s superintendent was quoted as saying that the incident, “…happened very quickly. It was a very hectic day and we were short-handed.”
A September 27, 2007, Seattle Post Intelligencer story and a September 28, 2007, Seattle Times story reported on a widespread number of crimes in Seattle Public Schools that went unreported to police. A three-month-old sexual assault that had never been reported to police by the school, according to the Post-Intelligencer story. Assaults and robberies were among the other crimes not reported, according to the story. The Post-Intelligencer report that at one high school, a 15-year-old female alternative school student was caught carrying 15 nails, two cans of Mace and a 1 1/2 -foot crescent wrench “marijuana-type substance,” and a lighter, but police were not called. The Times story indicated that there were over 1,000 incidents that included threats, robberies, assaults, sexual assaults, and weapons possession which appeared to have not been reported to police. One parent reported that school officials had actually tried to talk her out of reporting an assault on her daughter that ended up with the daughter getting a fractured nose, concussion, and other injuries.
September 10 and 11, 2007, New York Daily News stories reported on a story where school officials at Jamaica High School in Queens allegedly waited over an hour to call 911 for a 14-year-old female student who had a stroke. The school’s assistant principal had reportedly issued a memo advising that no deans in the school were allowed to call 911.The student lost use of her right hand and leg, and had to relearn how to speak and walk. Family members claim that the time lost in calling 911 may have caused her condition to be worse due to the lost time. According to the story, earlier in the year in February the school was put on the city’s list of dangerous schools, and some staff members felt pressure to drive down the statistics.
A February 22, 2007, New York Post story reported on a survey report released by a city public advocate claiming that the city’s education department was grossly under-reporting the number of school safety incidents. The story says the education department claimed just eight schools experienced 180 or more incidents (crimes or non-criminal disturbance), yet the advocate’s survey found that 18 of 158 principals and administrators surveyed said they handled more than 180 incidents over the period of the 2004-05 school year. There are about 1,450 schools in the system, according to the story.
A February 22, 2007, Associated Press story from Columbia, SC, reported on a high school principal being charged for hindering the investigation of a cheerleading coach who allegedly gave students beer. Police said that after telling the principal the police planned to talk with each cheerleader, the principal allegedly called a squad meeting of the cheerleaders and told them not to talk with anyone. Deputies reportedly believe the principal knew the coach was giving alcohol to students but did not report the information to authorities, according to police quoted in the story.
A September 20, 2006, Washington Post story reported on a 77-page report released by the Montgomery County, MD, Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight indicating that although the county’s school district has tracked school incidents since 1973, offense figures are not released publicly and the information is not detailed enough to allow school officials to identify trends. The report recommended that school, police, and state’s attorney’s office create guidelines for what types of incidents must be reported to authorities.
A September 3, 2006, Philadelphia Inquirer story reported on questionable school crime and violence data in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Philadelphia only reported one incident of theft to the state for 2004-05, but listed more than 1,000 in its own annual district report in which it claimed a 99% decline in school violence during 2003-04 and 2004-05, according to the story. No vandalism or disorderly conduct was reported to the state, yet the district’s own report listed more than 4,300 incidents, the story said. Almost three-quarters of all Pennsylvania districts reported no incidents of bullying during 2004-05 school year, about half reported no student disorderly conduct, and just over half listed fewer than five fighting incidents. In New Jersey, more than 21% of all school district entities reported no violence including assaults, fighting, and other serious offenses. A little under half said there was either one or no vandalism incidents during the school year. Numerous other discrepancies and/or questionable data were also reported in the story.
An August 28, 2006, story in the Camden (NJ) Courier-Post questioned the accuracy of Camden School District state reports on school violence, in which the district reportedly claimed a 99% decline in school violence during 2003-2004 and 2004-2005. The incidents reportedly dropped from 976 in 2002-2003 to 222 in 2003-2004 and 13 in 2004-2005. The state’s school report card was said to show one expulsion in 2003-2004 and one in 2004-2005, yet district legal invoices showed the Board convened at least six expulsion hearing meetings involving 21 different students during the two years.
An August 9, 2006, story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on a Fayette County high school incident where school officials reportedly knew about a student who allegedly planned to bring weapons the first day of school, but failed to act on it prior to the opening of school. The 17-year-old was arrested on the first day of school, August 7th, after he was found to have a 4-inch switchblade in school. A search of his car in the school parking lot found two rifles, two handguns, ammunition and a black, ninja-type outfit with mask, gloves, and a sword. School officials reportedly claimed they were dealing with unsubstantiated information and decided to wait until the opening of school.
An August 8, 2006, story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution documented significant discrepancies and questions surrounding the accuracy and consistency of school discipline incident reports by local districts to state education officials.
A June 2, 2006, Kansas City Star story reported that the Johnson County District Attorney issued a warning letter to Shawnee Mission School District advising the district to do a better job reporting crimes to authorities after two incidents allegedly went unreported to police. One incident involved a reported student threat to kill a teacher. A month prior, the District Attorney’s office filed charges against an elementary school nurse for failing to report child abuse.
A May 23, 2006, story in The Times Union from Albany, New York, reported on a press conference the day before by New York State Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, blamed local school administrators and NY State Department of Education for underreporting and covering up school crimes. Hevesi referred to the situation as a “widespread cover-up” according to the article. The auditors reviewed records of 17 high schools from 15 school districts. In Albany High School, officials reported 144 incidents to the state office, but auditors found 924 violent or disruptive incidents during the 2003-04 school year, according to the story. The Times Union story reported on other findings including: at least 10 schools failed to report incidents in which weapons were involved; schools were allowed to revise their reports with little documentation; and more than 2,300 schools submitted their reports late. A few school officials said they were underreporting because they assumed that neighboring districts were doing the same and they didn’t want to look bad, the story cited Hevesi as saying.
A January 5, 2006, Indianapolis Star story reported that an exclusive private school expelled a 16-year-old after school officials allegedly found a 9mm Glock loaded with 17 rounds and other loaded magazine in the boy’s sport utility vehicle on campus. Another male student, age 17, was reportedly suspended in connection with the incident. Police reports were said to indicate that the students were sent home before police arrived and that the headmaster of the school called the school attorney before calling police, “to find out what procedure I should take.”
A December 7, 2005, story in the Denver Post documented serious discrepancies in state school accountability reports on school crime and violence reporting. In one case, a high school that reported no fights or assaults for the entire school year actually had a student stabbed to death in an altercation in the school’s cafeteria. The state’s largest school district reported a drop in fights and assaults from 644 in one year to zero (0) in this reporting year.
An August 26, 2005, story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution highlighted a federal audit citing three Georgia school districts as underreporting school crimes required to be reported under the “persistently dangerous school” law requirement. The report identified incidents including felony drug and weapons offenses, a terroristic threat and an aggravated battery that were not included on the systems’ reports. The report claims that one district failed to report 28 misdemeanor drug incidents and three felony drug incidents.
A story in the August 10, 2005, edition of The Augusta Chronicle in Augusta, Georgia, reported on an alleged school shooting incident on May 5, 2005, at the Augusta Preparatory Day School which was not reported to the county sheriff’s department.
A June of 2005 report in the Denver Post documented serious discrepancies in information such as the number of students caught with dangerous weapons or drugs, the number expelled or suspended for the offenses, and how often police were notified, in annual School Accountability Reports to parents. The story states that although 454 schools reported at least one dangerous-weapon incident last year, just two in five told education officials that they had reported the incidents to police, as required by state law. A total of 234 of incidents appear in Department of Education records to have ignored state law by not expelling the violators, according to the report.
A June 28, 2005, Education Daily article reported on an audit of Texas, Iowa, and Georgia by the U.S. Department of Education’s Inspector General which found that states continue to underreport violent school incidents, supply inaccurate data, and fail to adequately oversee local implementation of federal requirements for reporting school crimes. The findings mirror an earlier similar repot on California, the story said.
In March of 2005, in Columbus, Ohio, administrators at one high school attracted national attention for allegedly not reporting to police a sexual attack on a female student which had occurred on an auditorium stage and for one administrator allegedly attempting to discourage the victim’s father from calling police out of fear it would generate media attention. Criminal charges for failing to report the crime were later made against the principal, who was terminated by the district according to media reports. The principal was later cleared of the criminal charges.
In April of 2003, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the state’s largest school district (Gwinnett County) failed to report over 24,000 serious incidents, including fights, thefts and drug, sex and weapons offenses, to the state as required by state law. In May of 2003, the same newspaper reported that 40 of Atlanta’s 91 schools failed to report any discipline data to the state.
A series of reports from May – September of 2003 in The Roanoke Times documented police concerns of school crime underreporting and the transfer of a school resource officer from a school after he acknowledged telling a reporter that he had concerns that school crimes were not being reported to police. Other internal police memos obtained by the paper documented similar concerns.
In July of 2002, The Press of Atlantic City reported that more than 130 incidents from across 12 schools were not reported to the state in the 2000-2001 state reports on violence and vandalism. Incidents not reported included incidents involving assaults with injuries requiring hospital trips, a weapon, vandalism, and multiple involving arrests.
Surveys of our nation’s school-based police officers conducted by Kenneth Trump consistently indicate that school crimes are already underreported to law enforcement. In four annual surveys of school-based police officers (up to more than 700 officers per year), our surveys have found the following percentages of officers stating that school crimes nationwide are underreported to law enforcement:
2004 survey: 86%
2003 survey: 87%
2002 survey: 89%
2001 survey: 84%
School police officers surveyed in 2003 also indicated that they believe that a federal law mandating school crime reporting would improve school safety.
There are countless other examples of school crimes not being reported. Any respected, experienced school safety professional, and most honest educators, will acknowledge that the underreporting of school crimes is a problem which has existed for decades.
