From the 2004-05 to 2005-06 school year, sex offenses reported in city elementary, middle and high schools nearly doubled, from 543 to 948, according to figures from the State Education Department.
Assaults with physical injury rose from 4,000 to 5,084, and robberies jumped five-fold, from 50 to 267, the agency said..
"We obviously are going to look and see if there's something specific" we can address, said city Department of Education spokeswoman Dina Paul Parks.
"In general, I think it's not completely shocking that with better training and added emphasis on reporting and tracking accurately, the numbers would reflect that."
State officials, too, said the increase in schools labeled as dangerous isn't necessarily indicative of an uptick in violence.
"I think the number went up because the reporting was much more rigorous this year," said state Education Commissioner Richard Mills. "There has just been a huge amount of attention to this."
This is where we send our children every day? Are we not really that concerned for their safety?
So it should make everyone feel better to know that there probably isn't really an "uptick in violence" in these schools, it's probably been this way all along, schools are just getting better and tracking and reporting it. Boy, that's good to know.
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