One in three Hawaii kids offered drugs at high school

From Hawaii KIDS COUNT

The annual Indicators of School Crime and Safety report – a joint effort of the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics – presents the most recent data available on crime and student safety in public schools. School safety is conducive to the learning process. Crime or violent activity disrupts the school’s learning environment and interferes with the success of its students. 

Data for the report were gathered from national surveys of students, teachers and principals covering a wide range of topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school. 

In 2009, 31.5 percent of students in grades 9 - 12 reported they had been in a physical fight at least one time anywhere, and 11.1 percent said they had been in a fight on school property.  Some data highlights for Hawai‘i are as follows:

 

• Nearly a third (29.5 percent) of high school students reported experiencing a physical fight in 2009, and 10.2 percent reported experiencing a fight while on school property.

• Hawaii was similar in the percentage of high school students who reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least once in 2009 (7.7 percent for both Hawaii and the US).

• More than a third (36.1 percent) of high school grade students reported that drugs were made available to them on school property in 2009, higher than 22.7 percent nationally. 

• Nearly half of Hawaii teachers agreed or strongly agreed that student misbehavior (46.7 percent) and student tardiness and class cutting (49.0 percent) interfered with their teaching, higher than the national averages of 36.1 percent and 33.5 percent respectively.