How safe is your high school? As a guidance counselor, you have no doubt had to deal with the normal fights and arguments between students. Some schools contend with a lot more due to gang activity, drug use and sale, domestic violence and sexual assault being prevalent on campus. How does your school measure up? Is violence at your school a growing problem, or is it following a national trend of decline?

“One in 20 students was a victim of violence or theft at school in 2003, the government said in a report that shows school crime rates about were half what they were 10 years earlier.”
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In a much watched legal debate about who has the burden of proof in disputing the adequacy of a child’s individualized education program, the Supreme Court decided, 6 to 2, that the party bringing a challenge before an administrative law judge has the responsibility of showing that it is unsatisfactory.

Justice O’Connor said the 1970’s Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) legislation covered nearly seven million children across the country, and that it was meant to reverse a sad history. Before its passage, she said, “the majority of disabled children in America were ‘either totally excluded from schools or sitting idly in regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were old enough to drop out.’ ”

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College students have always taken advantage of the transfer policies at most colleges and universities. An increase in the rate of transfers has caused some higher education administrators to raise an eyebrow in alarm.

According to the National Survey of Student Engagement results released this week, nearly half of all college students take courses at more than one university before attaining their degree.

“It’s a myth we have in higher education to say students start and finish at one institution,” said Jillian Kinzie, an Indian University professor and author of the survey.
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“Hispanic teens are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to attend public high schools that have the dual characteristics of extreme size and poverty,” Richard Fry, senior associate at the Pew Hispanic Center, was quoted by the Associated Press.

A recent report by the center places more than half of Hispanic teenagers in schools with enrollments of roughly 1,800 students. They also found that student-teacher ratios of greater than 22 to 1 was common for four of ten Hispanic high school students. These numbers are significantly different for white and black students in public schools across the nation.
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