Newly released data show that fights and other types of physical aggression among L.A. Unified students are rising as the percentage of middle and high school students who said in a survey that they feel safe on campus continues to decline.
Reported episodes of fights and physical aggression rose by just over a third last school year when compared with the previous year, from 4,950 to 6,620.
The numbers for the first month of the current school year are about 25% higher when compared to last year, rising from 400 to 467. These numbers also have been on the rise for several years despite a steady decline in enrollment and a relative increase in school staffing.
The data points were released in Thursday’s Board of Education school safety committee meeting along with the results of last spring’s School Experience Survey. The survey gauges the feelings, experience and perceptions of students, staff members and parents on topics that broadly include academics, social and emotional learning and school climate. The safety-related questions are in the school climate portion.
For many of the questions, participants had five choices: Strongly Agree; Agree; Neither Disagree nor Agree; Disagree; Strongly Disagree.
In response to the prompt, “I feel safe in this school or in online school sessions,” 61% of high school students answered “strongly agree” or “agree.” Another 31% neither agreed nor disagreed and 8% disagreed or strongly disagreed.
While a comparatively small percentage of students said they felt unsafe, that number was still nearly one in 10. Among the remainder of students there was no overwhelming endorsement of safety measures.
“This is really sobering data,” said school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin, who chairs the safety committee. “This is hard to see — that things are getting worse over the last few years. Things are harder for our kids and communities. And we know that signs of violence are really signs of trauma and unmet needs.”
The trend is moving in the wrong direction.
Several questions dealt with different facets of safety, and they were combined into one safety metric. In data going back to the 2018-19 school year, the percentage of high school students who reported overall high ratings for safety has been slowly declining: 62%, 61%, 69%, 61%, 59%, 58%.
The figure of 69% for 2020-21 is an outlier. That was a period of remote learning when campuses were closed for most of the year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, most L.A. Unified students remained off campus for the entire academic year.
Research has strongly indicated that the period of remote learning resulted in academic and emotional setbacks for students in L.A. and across the country, but L.A.’s students did feel somewhat safer staying at home.
As discouraging as the high-school safety numbers are, they are incrementally worse for middle school, where 57% of students said they “strongly agree” or “agree” that they feel safe.
In elementary schools — a place many adults presume students are in a relative cocoon of security and well-being — 76% agreed or strongly agreed that they feel safe in school.
The data on incidents at schools were pulled from iStar reports, which are an imprecise but useful metric. IStar stands for Incident System Tracking Accountability Report, and it is an internal district system. It’s used to report crimes, fights, threats, vandalism, graffiti, vaping in the bathroom, suicide ideation and more. These reports are typically generated by a school principal. The principal has broad discretion on whether to file these incident reports but can face repercussions if an unreported incident later leads to problems. That knowledge seems to create an incentive for most principals to report incidents.
The district’s reporting to the public is another matter. The district has refused to release even redacted iStar reports that conceal student identities or to report summaries related to specific schools.
But officials have provided limited districtwide data — and that’s what was presented Thursday.
Overall data from the incident summaries were mixed but generally headed in the wrong direction. Students expressing thoughts related to suicide decreased slightly last year but are on a rising pace this year.
Weapons found went down slightly last year from 1,362 to 1,276. Weapons would include anything from an Exacto knife to a loaded semi-automatic firearm. At least four loaded or unloaded guns were confiscated in the first month of the school year. At least two were semi-automatic weapons.
Friday, internal district sources said a semi-automatic pistol was found at Bell High School, outfitted with a loaded and illegal magazine. District officials did not address these details, but said a search of a student after an “altercation” led to the discovery of a student “in possession of a firearm.”
The latest stats also include incidents with illegal or controlled substances, which continue to rise, as do incidents involving threats.
In addition to the data, the safety committee agenda included what the district is doing to make schools safer — and many efforts are underway. Thursday’s discussion focused almost exclusively on programs related to counseling, as opposed to policing efforts or measures taken to deal with threats to a school from off campus.
The Los Angeles School Police Department is not represented on the safety committee. Under board rules, the seven-member school board can have up to three of its members on a particular committee. The safety committee is chaired by Franklin and includes school board President Jackie Goldberg and board member Rocío Rivas, who have spoken in favor of placing strict limits on the role of school police. Franklin has consistently advocated for eliminating school police entirely, while also asserting that data should be disclosed to the public.
The district’s favored approach to student discipline involves supporting positive behavior and “restorative practices,” through which students take responsibility for their actions and learn how to make amends.
The role of school police was brought up by public speakers. Channing Martinez, from the locally based Labor Community Strategy Center, said restorative practices could not be fully effective while the district continued to embrace what he characterized as racist practices, including funding a school police department.
On the other side, several parents called for restoring cuts to the school police and returning officers to middle and high schools. A slim board majority voted in 2020 to remove school police from campus and sharply reduce the department’s budget.
“We are seeing here in the data that there’s been an increase in fights,” said Diana Guillen, a parent who holds volunteer leadership positions with district advisory groups. “So what are you going to do about it? Your program is failing.”
Goldberg wanted to know why students feel unsafe.
“Ask them, ‘What makes you feel safe?’ That would be an interesting help, because we have some kids who feel safe around police and some kids who don’t,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg also questioned the effectiveness of restorative practices, although she strongly supports the concept. She said a handful of schools at most in her district are carrying out these practices effectively.
Andres Chait, chief of school operations, acknowledged the problem as he fielded questions. He said restorative practices — while still imperfect — hit a peak leading into the pandemic and then lost momentum. The district is still playing catch-up, he said.
But he also highlighted positive signs, including nearly 800 psychiatric social workers, the most the district has ever employed, he said. The district also is expanding partnerships with private and public entities, Chait said. Working with the city of Los Angeles, there are now more crossing guards than ever, for example, providing an adult presence on the path to and from campus.
The safety issue extends into the neighborhoods around schools, where, according to the survey results, students said they feel less safe than on campus.
The surveys also are conducted for parents and school staff.
About 78% of parents agreed with the statement that their children are safe on school grounds in middle and high schools. The figure was 90% for elementary schools.
Among school employees, about 9 in 10 agreed with the statement that they felt safe on their middle- or high-school campus. The figure was 96% for elementary schools.
For middle and high schools, about 8 in 10 employees agreed that they felt safe “in the neighborhood around my school.” The figure was 85% for elementary schools.
The district listed the participation rate at 94% for students, 97% for staff and 58% for parents. The survey was mostly online, although some paper forms were distributed to campuses for use by parents. The survey was conducted from Feb. 12 through March 22.
