Students feel safer in Iowa City schools

Most Iowa City school district students feel safe at school, according to survey results released Tuesday.

The news was less encouraging for instances of bullying and fighting, and minority students were disciplined at a disproportionate rate.

The school board Tuesday night received the annual safety and climate report, a compilation of various surveys and statistics.

In a survey taken last October by sixth-, eighth-, and 11

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-graders, 89 percent agreed or strongly agreed that school was a safe place.

Still, the percentage of students who reported being physically bullied at least three times in the 30 days before the survey increased a few points in each grade last year, hitting 7 percent for sixth-graders and 10 percent in both eighth and 11

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grade.

The rate of students who had been in a fight on school property in the past year was 15 percent for sixth grade, 19 percent for eighth grade and 11 percent for 11

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grade. Those numbers the year before were 15 percent, 13 percent and 10 percent.

Minorities, particularly black students, make up a disproportionate number of students being disciplined. Black students accounted for 49.7 percent of out-of-school suspensions last school year even though they made up just 16.2 percent of the enrollment. They also represented 46 percent of the referrals to police.

The report included wellness information for the first time. It shows 81 percent of sixth-graders and 78 percent of eighth-graders were in the “healthy zone” for body mass index in the spring of 2009.

That number was only 68 percent for 12th-graders, however, down 10 percent from fall 2007. Twelfth-graders had a poor showing in aerobic capacity, with only 38 percent in the healthy zone.

Staff members also took the climate survey, and there were some interesting disparities in their views and those of students, particularly at the secondary level.

For example, 94 percent of secondary school staff said nearly all or most adults at their school “really care about every student,” whereas only 48 percent of students felt that way. Thirty-nine percent of staff said student alcohol and drug use was a moderate or severe problem, compared with 61 percent of secondary students.