California's high school Fear Factor capital: Lassen County

October 26, 10:38 AMSF Education ExaminerCaroline Grannan

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When I posted here and elsewhere about the study showing that only 33% of San Francisco high-schoolers feel safe at school, I said that doesn't seem to be true of high-schoolers I know -- and I got pooh-poohed somewhat. So I decided to look at the actual Children Now

report

to see if I could determine what kids were surveyed.

Well, I haven't yet gotten that far through the slow-loading PDF, but I did look at the county-by-county results for the question at hand -- whether high-schoolers feel safe at school. They do seem to put the supposed Fear Factor in SFUSD high schools in a different light.

Of California's 58 counties, there are only 7 in which MORE students feel safe at school than San Francisco, plus there are four tied with San Francisco. Thus there are 46 counties in California in which more high school students feel unsafe than in San Francisco. The county with the lowest percentage of high school students who feel safe is Lassen County (its landmark Mount Lassen is pictured), where only 19% of high-schoolers feel safe at school, compared with San Francisco County's 33%.

Here are the counties where more students feel safe in high school than the number in San Francisco:
Mariposa 34%
Colusa 35%
Placer 35%
El Dorado 37%
Marin 37%
Inyo 40%
Sierra 40%

The ties -- in all these counties, 33% of high-schoolers feel safe at school, the same percentage as in San Francisco:

Nevada 33%
Orange 33%
San Luis Obispo 33%
Shasta 33%

Go figure, but it sounds like most high school kids statewide report feeling unsafe at school, and that more San Francisco high-schoolers feel safe than their peers in most other California counties.