Crime and violence is up in local schools, annual report states
By LAURA THORNBURG
Staff
Acts of crime and violence have doubled in Alleghany County Schools
as compared to last year’s numbers, according to information released
Dec. 5 by the Department of Public Instruction. Meanwhile, school
violence numbers decreased statewide.
During the 2006-07 school year, the high school reported one case of
a bomb threat and one case of possession of an alcoholic beverage,
two cases of possession of a controlled substance and four cases of
possession of a weapon. Glade Creek also reported one case of
possession of a weapon.
According to information reported for the schools last year, there
were three cases of possession of a controlled substance and one case
of possession of a weapon. All of the cases were reported to have
occurred at the high school, resulting in a total of 2.647 acts per
1,000 students.
Meanwhile, numbers of acts of school crime and violence have
decreased throughout the state in comparison to last year’s numbers.
While the actual number of acts increased to 11,013 among the state’s
1.4 million students, the total correlates to 7.77 acts per 1,000
students as to 7.9 acts per 1,000 students last year.
Breaking down the 11,013 acts of crime and violence in the state, a
total of 1,014 occurred in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade
schools, 321 occurred in elementary/middle schools, 2,920 occurred in
sixth through eighth grade schools, 367 occurred in middle/high
schools, and a total of 6,249 acts of crime and violence occurred in
high schools. A total of 142 acts were placed in a category referred
to as "other," which includes ungraded schools, special education
schools and schools with grades that cross more than one level, such
as a kindergarten through twelfth grade school.
Addressing the 2006-07 numbers in Alleghany, Superintendent Jeff Cox
said, "Any time you have such a small membership in a school district
(about 1,500 to 1,600 students), three or four incidents are really
going to change the percentage pretty substantially."
Making mention of the number of possession of weapons acts in the
school system, he pointed out that the "weapon" is typically a pocket
knife which has a blade that is more than two inches long.
"We live in an area where it’s not uncommon for kids to have pocket
knives," said Cox.
Get the whole story - read this week's edition of The Alleghany News! |
