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Friday, August 26, 2005
School Crime & You
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Update: Here’s some info on the South Atlanta High School brawl a poster refers to…
According to this story, a federal audit found Gwinnett County, City of Atlanta and Houston County underreported crime in their schools.
The AJC broke this story a couple of years ago based on an analysis by our database editor that showed Gwinnett and Atlanta were underreporting, based on their populations and crime reports of other districts.
This audit found no evidence that the underreporting was intentional. It’s easy to see why school officials would be less than motivated to report crime. Not only do you run the risk of being labeled unsafe under No Child Left Behind, the data is widely available. Many parents simply will not send their kids to a school they think is unsafe.
A major concern with incident reporting is consistency from school to school. Fights in the cafeteria…Students threatening teachers…a punch in the face on the school bus… How much is getting reported, and how easy is it to look the other way? Another concern is in-house police departments vs. the local police. Sometimes it’s hard to get information on a crime when we don’t know what agency handled it.
Parents, what do you want in terms of school safety reports? Teachers and students, do you think crime is less of a problem than parents think it is?
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED! STAY TUNED FOR MORE GIVEAWAYS! Friday Book Giveaway: “Read Right! Coaching Your Child to Excellence in Reading,” is published by McGraw Hill and says it’s “perfect for ages 1 to 10.” It’s a large-print book with lots of tips and anecdotes. The first person to e-mail me at pghezzi@ajc.com requesting this book gets it.
