Parents' Unease Over School Safety Elevated for Fourth Year

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Even before a shooter this week killed two children and injured numerous others during a Minneapolis Catholic school church service, U.S. parents were registering heightened anxiety about their own children’s safety at school.

Forty-one percent of U.S. parents of K-12 students told Gallup in an Aug. 1-20 survey that they fear for their oldest child’s physical safety at school. This is consistent with readings from the past three years, ranging from 38% to 44%, all above the long-term average of 34% Gallup has recorded since regular measurements began in 1998.

The last time concern reached this level before the current four-year stretch was in March 2001, shortly after a student fatally shot two classmates and injured 13 others at a Santee, California, high school. At that time, 45% of parents feared for their child’s safety.

Timeline of Parental Fear Leading Up to Recent Highs

After first measuring it in 1977, Gallup updated parental concern about school safety in 1998 following a series of deadly school shootings, finding 37% of parents expressed fear for their child’s safety. However, the sentiment spiked to a record high 55% after the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999. Concern receded to 26% by August 2000, only to rise again to 45% in 2001 after the Santee shooting.

Parents’ concern abated within a few months after that episode and settled mostly below the trend average of 34% for the next 18 years, through 2019. There were times after school shootings that concern increased, such as to 33% after the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, but never exceeded 35% during this period.

The question was not asked in 2020 or 2021 due to pandemic-related school disruptions. When it was measured again in 2022, three months after the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that claimed 21 lives, concern jumped to 44% and has remained elevated since.

Elevated Fear Seen Across Parent Subgroups

The sustained rise in fear since 2016-2019 is not confined to any particular category of parent but has grown among all major demographic, political and socioeconomic subgroups.

Gallup's analysis of the data based on four-year groupings to increase statistical reliability finds meaningful increases in concern among mothers and fathers, lower- and upper-income households, and parents of children at all grade levels.

Longer term, groups that historically report lower concern, such as fathers, upper-income parents and Republicans, have kept pace with other groups in terms of mounting concern over the past two decades.

Children’s Fear Also Elevated

Gallup also periodically tracks children’s fear of physical threats at school by asking parents whether any of their school-aged children have expressed concern about their safety when going back to school.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, following the Columbine and Santee shootings, about 20% of parents said their children were fearful. This fell to 8% in 2003 and persisted near that lower level through 2018.

Since then, between 12% and 20% of parents have said their school-aged children have voiced concern about their safety at school, including 15% in the latest poll. That is slightly above the average 12% for the full trend.

Bottom Line

Although not a record high, the 41% of U.S. parents today feeling anxious about their children’s safety at school is well above average for the Gallup trend since 1998 and marks the longest stretch of continuously high parental fear about children’s safety in that period.

History shows that major school shootings often drive temporary spikes in parental fear. Given the timing of the latest poll, before the tragic incident in Minneapolis, these findings may understate current levels of anxiety among parents nationwide.

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View complete question responses and trends (PDF download).