Indicator: Youth Feeling Safe To/From School

Priority or Priorities:  ACES/Resiliency
Initiative(s): Trauma-Informed System of Care (THRIVE), Asset building schools and communities
Outcome (s): Children and youth respected, safe and nurtured in their communities

Why This is Important

Schools are an important environment for young people, and the safety of that environment is of great concern to educators, young people and their families. Students who feel unsafe are more likely to be distracted and less likely to learn to their full potential. Schools are also a reflection of their local communities, and indicators related to school safety can also be indications of how safe children are in their community. How safe young people feel on their way to or from school is significant in that it is a measure of the safety of the local community environment.

Where We Stand

Since 1993, over 90% of young people in grades 9 through 12 have reported feeling safe at school, or traveling to or from school. While this percentage slipped slightly in 2001, both in Maine and nationally, it rose to previous levels by 2005. The 2005 survey data indicates that about 1 in 30 young people in Maine stayed away from school at least one day in the last 30 because they felt unsafe.

Data Source and Context

The results are the percentage of young people in grades 9 through 12 who did not stay away from school on at least one of the past 30 days because they felt unsafe at school or on their way to or from school. This information comes from the Maine Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), Maine Department of Education. The data source is the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data from the Maine YRBS is available on-line at http://www.mainecshp.com/survey.html. National YRBS figures can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/yrbs. 

*Important Note: YRBS data is gathered every two years using a questionnaire administered to a sample of students in Maine and nationally. When the Maine YRBS survey has an overall response rate of 60% or higher, the CDC statistically weights the results so that the numbers can be generalized to all public school students in the state in grades 9-12. When the overall response rate is below 60%, the CDC does not perform such statistical weighting, and the data apply only to the students who actually filled out the questionnaires. Maine’s YRBS data for 1993 and 1999 was unweighted, so information from those years cannot be compared reliably with data from 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2005.