Over 90 school shootings involving injuries or deaths occurred during the 2020-2021 school year, the most in 20 years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
In a report released on Tuesday, the NCES found that 93 school shootings with casualties took place in the 2020-2021 year, a 20% increase from the year before. During that time, 43 shootings occurred that caused at least one death, while 50 caused injuries but no deaths. These are the highest figures to be recorded since data began being collected during the 2000-2001 school year.
The report also determined that despite the high number of shootings, the rates of other crimes such as theft and harassment have dropped since 2009.
"People have been working really hard to reduce the bullying, the name-calling, the kicking, harassment kinds of issues, and we’ve been pretty effective as a country at reducing them," Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles and a school safety expert, told K-12 Dive.
Astor noted that the report states that about half of public schools offer mental health assessment or treatment services, but said that more still needs to be done.
"Anybody who’s been in a school knows that you have a whole organizational system, they're in a whole ecological system, and to create a positive climate or to create a situation where there’s harm involved is usually not just one person," Astor said.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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