School Crime Report Has Interesting Ups and Downs

by A.P. Dillon

• Serious Offenses Show Spike
• Drop-out Rates Increase for Hispanics, Whites
• Short Term Suspensions Rise by 10,400

The Department of Public Instruction has released the 2014-15 Consolidated Data Report. This report contains data on North Carolina school suspensions, discipline and school crime.

A focus of the report is crime and suspensions. Starting with serious offenses being reported, these consist of controlled substances (drugs) on campuses, assault and weapons. While overall crime seems to be down, there are troubling increases in serious offenses.

According to the report:

• The number of reportable crimes by high school students increased by 372 from 2013-14 to 2014-15, a 6.8% increase. The high school reportable crime rate [crimes per 1,000 students] increased 6.6%. 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%.
• 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.
• The most [frequent] reportable crimes in high school were 1) possession of a controlled substance in violation of the law, 2) possession of a weapon excluding firearms and powerful explosives, and 3) possession of an alcoholic beverage.
• The most [frequent] reportable crimes in high school were 1) possession of a controlled substance in violation of the law, 2) possession of a weapon excluding firearms and powerful explosives, and 3) possession of an alcoholic beverage.

What are the numbers behind the three most frequently reported crimes and how did they compare with the previous year? According to the report, here is the breakdown:

Possession of controlled substance:             4,478 (2013-14) / 4,672 (2014-15)
Possession of a weapon:                            2,812 (2013-14) / 3,052 (2014-15)

Assault of School Personnel:                     1,333 (2013-14) / 1,272 (2014-15)

The districts with the highest reportable crime numbers were also the districts with the largest student populations. Charlotte-Mecklenburg had 624 crimes with a student population of 40,675Wake had 562 with a student population of 45,134.

Interestingly, the report does not list simple assaults, which seem to be popping up in videos on the Internet with greater frequency over the last year.

The report does include two rather alarming statistics – 78 bomb threats and 86 reports of a firearm or “powerful explosive.” The majority of these reports were at the high school level. The previous year, 2013-14, there were 66 bomb threats and 88 reports of a firearm or “powerful explosive.” In other words, these numbers don’t seem to be really increasing or decreasing significantly.

Moving on to dropout rates, we see an increase over the previous year according to the report:

• High schools in North Carolina reported a dropout rate of 2.39%, a 4.8 percent increase from the 2.28% rate reported the previous year.

• Grades 9-13 reported 11,190 dropouts in 2014-15, an increase of 786 from the 10,404 total reported in 2013-14.
• There were increases in 58.3% (67 of 115) of the Local Educational Agencies (LEAs).

In comparison with previous years, other than 2013-14, there appears to be a decrease in the overall dropout rate. The real significance of the dropout rate can be seen when one looks at the break out by race and sex.

The number of white students dropping out increased by 352, and the total was nearly the same as black and Hispanic students combined in 2014-15.

Males were overwhelmingly in the majority, with 62% of all the reported dropouts, although that is a 0.07 percentage point decrease from the prior year.

When it comes to suspensions, these data make up the majority of the Consolidated Report. That’s not unusual from previous years, but given the very vocal attention on the topic coming from various social justice groups in the state, it is worth paying more attention to.

Here are some of the more notable bullet points from on the report:

• Short-term, out-of-school suspensions rose from 198,254 in 2013-14 to 208,650 in 2014-15 (5.2% increase).
  Long-term, out-of-school suspensions dropped from 1,088 in 2013-14 to 1,085 in 2014-15 (0.3% decrease).
• There were 86,578 grade 9-13 short-term suspensions in 2014-15 (2.7% increase over the 2013-14 total of 84,295).
• Approximately one out of every 13 students received at least one out-of-school short-term suspension in 2014-15. If you consider only high school students, that ratio rises to one out of 9 students.

One could argue school systems are making more use of short-term suspensions due to the “school to prison pipeline” narrative being pushed in various districts around the state, most notably in Wake and Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

That narrative has been supported in Wake County by groups like NC HEAT, Education Justice Alliance and Dignity in Schools. These groups are supported by, or are at least working in tandem with, the Coalition of Concerned Citizens For African American Children (CCCAAC).

The CCCAAC is directed by two individuals, Rukiya and Ajamu Dillahunt.

Ajamu Dillahunt works for the NC Justice Center, which is the parent of Blueprint NC. Blueprint NC was caught red-handed coordinating a long list of Left leaning groups in the state to “cripple, eviscerate and pressure” Republican leadership on every issue,

Rukiya Dillahunt seems to lead CCCAC and is tied to the Black Workers For Justice group. Last year, CCCAC was involved in an attempt to remove ‘zeros’ from grading in Wake County. Dillahunt claimed the grades were “too punitive.”

Rukiya Dillahunt, along with a host of the groups involved in the “school to prison pipeline” narrative, was also involved in the complaint brought against Wake County Schools and the Wake County sheriff. The complaint was filed after a water balloon fight went awry at Enloe High school and eight students were either arrested or detained.

The meat of the complaint is that Wake County schools and Wake sheriffs are apparently regularly violating the civil rights of students and that they are “…subjected to ongoing school policing policies and practices in Wake County Public School System (“WCPSS” or “the district”) that unnecessarily and unlawfully punish and criminalize minor misbehaviors and disproportionately harm African-American students and students with disabilities …”

Such developments raise an important question. Are these complaints and the “school to prison pipeline” an underlying reason for the shifts in the NC schools crime report?