If you’re a parent of school-aged children, you may have wondered just what it’s like to walk into a modern public school and experience what your kids are experiencing. What sort of people are your kids being exposed to each and every day? What fears and concerns do your kids have as they walk the halls of their modern school? Perhaps your kids have not been affected by the violence and danger at their school, but I’ll be willing to bet they know some other student whose life has been affected by school violence.
The numbers of incidents involving bullying, gang violence, alcohol and drug abuse, killing, beatings, stabbings, and shootings are indeed sobering. Some parents who are apparently fed up with this unacceptable, dangerous, and even life-threatening behavior at school have decided to take matters, and their child’s education, into their own hand. Some parents have decided that home school is a safer option for their children.
Homicide was the 2nd Leading Cause of Death for Young Folks
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), almost 6,000 kids between the ages of 10 and 24 were murdered. That’s an average of 16 deaths per day, 86% of them were male. Between the years of 1992 and 2006, 116 students were killed in 109 separate school incidents. Most of the school-associated homicides were caused by a gunshot wound or stabbing.
The CDC Data Sheet also states that “perpetrators of school-associated homicides were nine times as likely as victims to have exhibited some form of suicidal behavior before the event, and were more than twice as likely as victims to have bullied by their peers.” What sort of things are going on in the lives of students at school to get them to the point of suicidal behavior? Perhaps it’s time to talk with your kids and ask them.
U.S. Schools are ‘Relatively’ Safe?
Parents, teachers, and especially students expect schools to be a safe haven for learning, free of the fear of violence. Anyone knows that a place where such fears of violence exist cannot be considered safe. Fear of violence and concern for personal safety create a huge disruption in the learning process and have a negative effect on all involved.
The CDC, in an article titled, “Youth Violence: School Violence,” claims that the U.S. schools remain relatively safe. What exactly does that mean? Does this mean that a certain amount of bullying, physical assault, sexual assault, sexual violence, beatings, stabbings, and even murder make our schools “relatively safe?” In a typical home school environment, there is no fear of such things.
Risky Sexual Behaviors Rampant in Schools
Here’s a scary statistic – every year, 19 million people acquire some sort of sexually transmitted disease (STDs). Almost half of those are young folks between the ages of 15 to 24. According to the CDC, in 2009, 46% of high school students had engaged in sexual intercourse, and 14% of those had four or more sexual partners. Of those high school students who are sexually active, 34% do not use a condom. In 2002, 757,000 pregnancies occurred among adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 years old.
Is home schooling a sure-fire way to keep your kids completely safe from these terrible things? No one is that naive, but a home school environment does provide a safer place where kids are not likely to face problems with gangs, violence, risky sexual activity, drugs, alcohol, or any of these type of problems. Home school does indeed provide a better environment for kids facing or struggling with any of these issues.
Sources:
CDC.gov, “Youth Violence: Facts at a Glance”
CDC.gov, “Sexual Risk Behaviors”
CDC.gov, “Youth Violence: School Violence”
