Sunday, July 7, 1996

Texas Poll: violence on school grounds is a problem

By KAREN LISTER
Harte-Hanks Texas Poll Syndicate
Copyright 1996 Harte-Hanks Communications

Most Texans say violence on school grounds is a problem, according to the Harte-Hanks Texas Poll, but few parents describe their own child's campus as an unsafe place.

Those numbers reflect the disparity between the way people see society as a whole and their own situation, analysts said.

"I think they want to think their child's school is safe," said John D. King, professor of educational administration at the University of Texas at Austin and a licensed psychologist. "I think there's an element of denial there."

When asked if violence is a problem in schools, 78 percent of Texans agree. Yet 27 percent of parents say their child's school has a violence problem.

Texans are divided when asked about the security of campuses in general, with 47 percent rating schools as a safe place. But when parents are asked about the school their child attends, 79 percent describe it as safe.

Blacks and East Texans are less likely than other Texans to agree that schools are a safe place.
Studies in recent history have indicated a growing presence of violence in schools, analysts said.

But while some people may have a general perception that violence is in schools, they may be hesitant to say it is part of their own situation, said Merlyn D. Moore, criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University.

"Unless something really happens to us, I think there's a tendency in all of us to say it's going to happen to the other person but not us," Moore said. "Most of us wouldn't want to think we're putting our kids in harm's way. Therefore, I think there's a tendency to not look as critically as we should."

That tendency may be the result of a lack of parental participation in schools, he said.

"When you get more specific, it may be ignorance on the part of parents," Moore said. "Because of their lack of involvement in school affairs, they're not really aware of what is going on."

But Zane Chalfant, executive director of the Texas Parent Teacher Association, said the responses might indicate that parents are more up to date on measures taken in schools to make them safer.

"Approximately 70 percent of our parents feel their children are safe at school," he said in a prepared statement. "Without having the direct knowledge of local prevention programs to eliminate violence at the school level, the general public might be inclined to feel that school violence is out of control.

However, that is not to say that there are not serious problems that need to be addressed by all community leaders to make schools 100 percent safe."

The awareness of violence varies from place to place, and an incident characterized as a violent act in one town may not be so in another, said a spokeswoman for the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif.

"A community that had a particular violent incident may get mobilized to do something about it," said June Arnette, communications director for the center. "Then they become aware of every little incident, even though they may have been happening all along.

"Then there's the school district that is in denial," she said. "These things have been happening. But because there hasn't been a big incident or public outcry, they're just skating along."

Even if a student isn't attacked or physically hurt in school, violence or the threat of violence can have an impact on his learning.

"If you're fearful, it's going to affect your education," Arnette said. "If the kids are fearful and perceiving violence, whether the students' perception is based in reality or perception, it's going to affect their ability to do well in school."

It also can reduce the amount of time and focus teachers and administrators can give education.

"Over and over again, we're hearing that teachers are feeling really frightened in the school, and principals are having to donate a disproportionate amount of time to managing the crisis of the school," UT's King said.

The Harte-Hanks Texas Poll was conducted June 3-13 for Harte-Hanks Communications Inc. by the Office of Survey Research of the University of Texas at Austin. In a systematic random sample, the poll surveyed 1,000 adult Texans by telephone.

Margin of error for the whole sample was plus or minus 3 percentage points. The sample of 317 parents with children in schools has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.