Thirty-four percentof students say they are aware of an individual who poses a risk to their school, according to Awareity’s 2014 Student Safety Report.

The 2014 Student Safety Reportreveals students observe and know about things most school administrators don’t. Students are talking about concerning behaviors (hurting others, self-harm/cutting themselves, suicidal ideations, bringing weapons to school, drugs/alcohol and other risks) among themselves, but unfortunately these valuable pre-incident indicators are not being shared with the right people – school threat assessment and prevention teams.

Awareity’s online student survey is designed to gather current data on school climate, and responses from nearly 6,500 K-12 students (from across 14 states and Canada) revealed numerous gaps in schools and challenges facing youth today.

Almost 80 percent of students are witnessing and/or experiencing bullying at school. However, when students reported bullying, they say things got better only 17 percent of the time. And when students were asked why they are staying quiet about bullying-related behaviors, 28 percent said they are scared to make the situation worse. 

“Clearly school administrators face mounting obligations and liabilities,” says Rick Shaw, CEO of Awareity. “If schools are unable to connect the dots between students, parents, teachers, staff and administrators, as a nation we will continue to see more students becoming disconnected, withdrawing from school, resorting to violence or tragically taking matters into their own hands. The bottom line is concerning behaviors and warning signs are almost always observed, so most liabilities and tragedies are preventable. However, the path to prevention requires six essential steps, and most schools are not equipped to accomplish these steps, finding themselves in constant reaction and crisis management mode.”

The 2014 report also outlines the top six steps every school administrator should be taking to proactively prevent mounting liabilities related to student safety concerns, bullying, online behaviors, incident reporting failures and school response efforts.

Read more from the report, including the six steps that Awareity recommends, at http://awareity.com/2014-student-safety-report/.