Panel says Nevada schools getting safer

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

Nevada leads the nation in improving school safety, reporting a slight drop in fighting among students during a five-year period, according to a new national report.

The National Education Goals Panel cites the improvements in a January study, "Promising Practices: Progress Toward the Goals 1999."

The panel was formed in 1990 and is comprised of federal and state officials working toward the goal of higher student achievement.

The report says that from 1993 to 1997, the percentage of Nevada students who engaged in physical fights fell from 20 percent to 15 percent. Nevada is the only state where that statistic declined. The results were based on enrollment figures and the number of high school students reporting involvement in fights on school property.

"This has actually been a major thrust for the state Department of Edcuation and the state board in the last four years," said Michael Fitzgerald, coordinator for the state's Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities program. "I think that's making a difference."

Fitzgerald said he was pleased with the panel's report, but said Nevada still has much work to do.

While Nevada was the only state to experience a decline in student fighting, several other states reported a lower incidence of fighting.

States with the lowest percentage of public high school students reporting fights on school property were South Dakota with 11 percent and Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont and West Virginia, at 13 percent.

"If you look closely at the study, we aren't the safest state," Fitzgerald told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "But we are improving."