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2003 National School-Based
Law Enforcement Survey:
School Safety Threats
Persist, Funding Decreasing
National
Association of School Resource Officers
Background
The
National Association of School Resource
Officers (NASRO) entered into agreement with National School Safety and
Security Services for independent professional services for
the development, administration, and analysis of NASRO’s third annual
professional industry survey of school-based police officers. Surveys were
independently administered by the staff of
National School Safety and Security
Services, tallied by Scantron Corporation, and the results
analyzed and reported by Kenneth S. Trump, President of National School
Safety and Security Services, an independent, non-product affiliated
national school safety consulting firm.
The 20-question survey
instrument was developed in May of 2003 and administered to attendees of
the 13th Annual NASRO Conference held in Orlando, Florida, on
June 29 – July 4, 2003. 1,100 surveys were distributed to conference
attendees upon their registration. A total of 728 surveys were tallied by
Scantron Corporation, representing a return rate of approximately
66%. Whereas every respondent did not answer every question, the total
number of respondents for each question will be shown with the chart for
each question.
NASRO conferences provide the
largest single yearly gathering of SROs and offer the greatest cross-section
of officers with representatives from each of the 50 United States. The
results from surveys administered at NASRO conferences represent the largest
known bodies of data derived from school-based police officers in the world,
with the 2003 survey representing the largest return (total of 728) of the
three annual surveys conducted to date.
"The
results of this survey clearly indicate that we are operating in a 'lets
just wait and see' mode as it relates to preparing our schools for potential
terrorism," said Curt Lavarello, Executive Director of the National
Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), as he released the results
of the 2003 National School-Based Law Enforcement Survey.
"With
over three quarters of the surveyed School Resource Officers saying that
schools are not prepared to respond to a terrorist act and school safety
budgets are still being cut, our government is clearly gambling with the
lives of American school children," said Sean Burke, President of NASRO and
a Massachusetts-based police sergeant.
"The
nation's school police officers are telling public officials that school
safety threats are real, the gaps in preparedness are significant, and the
resources for protecting our children are decreasing at a time they are
increasing elsewhere to protect monuments, bridges, and government offices,"
said Kenneth S. Trump, a national school security expert and President of
Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, the
independent consulting firm contracted to conduct the NASRO survey.
Trump stated that while he spent hours in Cleveland's electric power
blackout the week prior to the survey release, he listened as political
officials pointed fingers and called the blackout a wake-up call. "Now is
the time for federal and state officials to wake up on homeland security for
our nation's schools, not after a crisis occurs that could have been
prevented," Trump remarked.
A full report, including the full executive
summary and a detailed section with individual question responses and
graphics, may be downloaded from the link
toward the end of this page.
Key Overall Findings
Significant
findings from this survey include:
School safety threats continue to persist from both within,
and outside of, our nation’s schools.
Over 90% of the
survey respondents believe that schools are “soft targets” for potential
terrorist attacks.
Over 70% of the
officers reported that aggressive behavior in elementary school children has
increased in their districts in the past five years
School-based police officers reported that significant gaps
continue to exist in their schools’ emergency preparedness planning and, in
training for terrorism and other crisis situations.
Over 76% of the officers
feel that their schools are not adequately prepared to respond to a
terrorist attack upon their schools.
Over 51% of the
respondents’ schools do not have specific, formal guidelines to follow when
there is a change in the national homeland security color code/federal
terrorism warning system.
Over 55% of the
respondents said that their school crisis plans are not adequate.
Over 62% of survey
respondents reported that their school crisis plans have not been adequately
exercised (tabletop exercises, full scale drills, etc.).
Over 71% of the respondents
report that their schools’ teachers, administrators, in-house (civilian,
non-school police) security personnel, and support staff have not received
terrorism-specific training.
Almost 47% of the
school-based officers themselves have not received any terrorism-specific
training related to their role as a school-based police officer.
Over 64% of the school officers
believe that student use of cell phones in schools during a crisis would
decrease school safety. Almost 17% believe that student use of cell
phones would have no impact on school safety.
Crimes occurring on school campuses nationwide are
underreported to law enforcement and the current federal No Child Left
Behind Act requirement for states to define “persistently dangerous” schools
will lead to further underreporting of school crime. The vast majority of
respondents also believe that Congress should enact a federal mandatory K-12
school crime reporting law.
Over 87% of
school-based police officers reported that the numbers of crimes that occur
on school campuses nationwide are underreported to police.
Over 61% of
survey respondents believe that school administrators faced with their
schools possibly being labeled as “persistently dangerous” will result in
decreased school crime reporting.
Over 88% of respondents believe the Congress should enact a federal law
requiring mandatory, consistent school crime reporting for K-12 schools
nationwide.
A significant percentage of School Resource Officers reported
budget cuts for school safety funding in their local school districts,
inadequacies in federal school safety funding, and the need for an
“Education Homeland Security Act” to fund school terrorism training, improve
security and crisis planning, and support SRO programs.
Over 41% of
school-based police officers report that funding for school safety in their
schools is decreasing.
Over 85% of the
survey respondents believe that the U.S. Department of Education’s 2004
proposed budget cut of 35% ($50 million) for state funding of the Safe and
Drug Free Schools program will contribute to schools being less safe.
Almost 64% of
the respondents believe that the U.S. Department of Education’s recently
announced $38 million in emergency planning grants (to be awarded to an
estimated total of 150 local education agencies) is inadequate.
95% of the
survey respondents believe that a Congressional “Education Homeland Security
Act” to fund SRO and school staff terrorism training, improve security and
crisis planning, and support SRO staffing would make schools more safe.
Download Full Report
Click on the links to our web pages for details
on each of the annual SRO surveys:
2004 School
Resource Officer Survey Report
2003 School
Resource Officer Survey Report
2002 School Resource Officer Survey
Report
2001 School Resource Officer Survey Report
To download a copy of any of
the four annual SRO surveys conducted by NSSSS, click on the survey
report file link below. You must have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader to open
the file.
2004 School
Resource Officer Survey Report
2003 School
Resource Officer Survey Report
2002 School Resource Officer Survey
Report
2001 School Resource Officer Survey
Report
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