Wisconsin schoolchildren are slinging on their backpacks and getting ready to head back to school. We often think of schools as safe places for children, but unfortunately, schools cannot block out all harmful influences on children. The Youth Risk Behavioral Survey, conducted by the Centers for

Disease Control, shows that for many Wisconsin children, the school environment offers its own hazards.

Imagine a high school class in Wisconsin of 100 students. Of those students,

• 24 students had been bullied on school grounds, according to the Youth Risk Behavioral Survey;
• 9 students had been in physical fight at school;
• 5 students were threatened or injured with a weapon at school in the past year;
• 3 students had carried a weapon to school recently; and
• 3 students had recently skipped school because they did not feel safe at school or on the way to or from school.

Improving school safety needs to be a major part of the discussion about improving the academic quality of Wisconsin schools. Students who are bullied, threatened, or injured, are not going to be able to take advantage of the learning opportunities offered to them.

By working to reduce violence and drug and alcohol abuse on school grounds, we can make it more likely that when children go back to school, they go back to safe schools.

Tamarine Cornelius