School safety concerns may worsen ongoing absenteeism in schools, suggest new federal data.
Thirteen percent of high school students reported missing school in 2023 out of safety concerns, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, absenteeism varied significantly for different groups of students. Girls were 6 percentage points more likely than boys to say they had stayed home from school in the last month because they worried about their safety at or on the way to school; 16 percent of girls said that, versus 10 percent of boys.
Only 1 in 10 Asian or white students reported missing school out of fear, compared to 15 percent of Black and Native American, 17 percent of Hispanic, and 22 percent of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students.
The findings are part of the CDC’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a nationally representative study of U.S. high school students. More than 20,000 students participated in the 2023 survey.
“Considering the vital role schools play in promoting health and well-being, it is critical to address school-based violence and safety concerns,” said Kathleen Ethier, the CDC’s director of adolescent and school health, in a statement.
Nearly 1 in 5 students reported they were bullied at school in 2023, and nearly 1 in 10 said they were threatened with or injured by a weapon on campus—both increases since 2021.
Reported bullying rates, which fell in the immediate aftermath of pandemic school closures, have returned to levels about on par with those of the last decade. But the likelihood that girls would report being threatened or injured with a weapon rose from 6 percent to 9 percent from 2013 to 2023. And the share of students who avoid school out of safely concerns has nearly doubled, from 13 percent in 2013.
In particular, the CDC data show higher shares of LGBTQ+ high school students reporting violence and bullying compared to their peers. LGBTQ+ students were also 7 percentage points less likely to report feeling close to others at school than heterosexual and cisgender students.
These stressors may also help to account for higher mental health problems among LGBTQ+ students, the CDC found. Forty-one percent of LGBTQ+ students said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year—more than triple the rate of heterosexual and cisgender students—and they were twice as likely as non-LGBTQ+ peers to have been injured in a suicide attempt.
Many students also perceived the school discipline system as stacked against them. Nearly 1 in 5 students reported being unfairly disciplined at school in the last year, with students of color more likely to report disparities. LGBTQ+ students were equally likely to report unfair discipline practices as all students, but boys in that community were more likely than girls to say they had experienced unfair discipline.
