School safety concerns reach 20-year high among U.S. parents, survey shows
After a spate of widely publicized mass shootings amplified calls for increased gun control across the U.S., new survey results point to rising safety concerns among parents of students enrolled in grades K-12.
The survey, conducted by Gallup, collected responses from adults nationwide whose children are returning to elementary, middle and high school classrooms for the upcoming academic year. It showed that 44% of adults who participated said they fear for their children's physical safety at school, while 20% said their children have independently articulated concerns about safety.
Parental concern over the potential dangers their children might face in school settings is elevated in 2022, according to Gallup. Data collected by the research group over the past two decades suggests that more parents of K-12 students are worried about school safety this year than any other year since 2001.
At the time, 45% of parents said they were concerned about school safety. That figure was slightly lower than those reported by Gallup days after the deadly mass shooting at Colorado's Columbine High School in April of 1999, and at the start of the academic term later that year. Data shows that parental concern reached 55%, a record high, in April, and fell to 47% when school started up again. The upswing in safety concerns seen in 2001 followed a dip in 2000, and, as Gallup noted in its 2022 report, trailed another shooting at Santana High School in Santee, California.
The results of Gallup's latest survey come on the heels of several mass shootings that shook the country this year. In May, 10 people were killed in a mass shooting that took place inside a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. Later the same month, 19 students and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, while 17 others were wounded. Then, over the summer, seven people were killed and more than 30 others were wounded in a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.
Those mass shootings followed a number of similar tragedies both in and outside of U.S. education institutions since the Columbine massacre, and a well-documented increase in gun violence nationwide. A mom from Oklahoma, Cassie Walton, shared a TikTok video that showed her reviewing active shooter drills with her 5-year-old son as he prepared to go to school. Walton's son demonstrated how he would use his backpack as a shield to protect himself if a shooter were to enter his classroom in the video, which quickly went viral.