Inform Article

Are Palm Beach County High Schoolers Safer than they Realize?

06.22.2010
Posted by Nicole Stroud of YourPBC.org
Are Palm Beach County High Schoolers Safer than they Realize? picture

The national Youth Risk Behavior Study (YRBS) helps us gauge how youth violence affects our high schoolers. The 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Study found that 8.5% of high school students in our county skipped school because they felt unsafe. The national average is 5%.

Graph showing percentage who skip school for safety reasons

South Florida high school teacher Bob Calder questions the usefulness of evaluating safety based on how often kids skip school. In his blog post, School Safety and Perception, he asks: how do we know if kids are staying home due to real threats of violence, or perceived threats? Maybe the kids are safer than they think they are.

A study looking at the number of actual incidents in each school in Palm Beach County may offer a more complete picture of the degree of youth violence in our schools. Without knowing the true extent of a problem, it's difficult to develop a solution.

How else can we measure youth violence in our schools? Do you feel that Palm Beach County high schoolers are generally safe? Leave us a comment.

The Youth Risk Behavior Study is conducted every two years by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, surveys high school students nationwide. A few select areas, including Palm Beach County, are funded to collect county-level data.