North Carolina public schools saw a rise in crime and dropout rates last year, according to a report released Wednesday by the State Board of Education.
The report stated that the state’s overall crime rate in schools increased 1.5 percent from 2013-14 to 2014-15 and 6.6 percent at the high school level.
The report also stated that the dropout rate increased 4.8 percent from last year at the high school level.
The State Board of Education will discuss the report at its meeting March 3 and release its statements about it after.
Some notable excerpts from the text include:
The number of reportable crimes by high school students increased by 372 from 2013-14 to 2014-15, a 6.8 percent increase. The high school reportable crime rate increased 6.6 percent. However, there was a decrease in crimes by students in lower grades, resulting in an overall increase in reportable crimes for all grades of 215 and an overall crime rate increase of 1.5 percent.
Reportable crimes were most frequently committed by students who were ninth graders and male. Among ethnic groups in high school, American Indian students had the highest rate of school crimes, followed by black students.
There were 86,578 grade 9-13 short-term suspensions reported statewide in 2014-15, an increase of 2.7 percent from the 2013-14 total of 84,295.
One of nine North Carolina high school students received at least one out-of-school, short-term suspension in 2014-15. Many students received only one suspension each year, but a number of students received multiple short-term suspensions. High school students who received short-term suspensions in 2014-15 averaged 1.83 suspensions each.
Ninth-grade students received the largest number of short-term suspensions. The rate of short-term suspensions for male students was 2.8 times higher than for females. Black students received the highest rate of short-term suspensions followed by American Indians. Short-term suspension rates increased in 2014-15 for black, Hispanic, multiracial and white students. Rates decreased for American Indian, Asian and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students.
The number of long-term suspensions (11 or more days) for all students declined slightly from 1,088 to 1,085. Average school days per suspension increased from 62.6 to 72.4 school days. High school students received 761 long-term suspensions, a 6.6 percent increase from 2013-14.
