New numbers from the State Board of Education show a reduction in overall crime in North Carolina schools. But some categories of crimes are on the rise.
Since North Carolina passed the Safe School Act in 1993, this report showing crimes, suspensions and dropout rates in public schools has been presented to the General Assembly every year.
The latest study shows a two percent decrease in crimes for the 2016-2017 school year. This marks the third year in a row that the numbers have shrunk.
But while infractions involving alcohol and drugs are slimming, physical assaults resulting in serious injury and sexual offenses have actually increased.
It's premature to call this a trend, and the number of assaults is still less overall than controlled substance violations. There have also been fewer firearms found on school property. But Kym Martin, the Executive Director of the NC Center for Safer Schools, is concerned.
“I do think we need to examine why some of the physical assaults in schools have a slight increase this time, and what that might mean towards training and other things that we would want to provide to schools,“ she says.
One of the training programs being rolled out is youth-specific de-escalation training for school resource officers. The center also hopes that funding for additional SROs will be prioritized in the next legislative session.