O.C. Schools Safer Than State Average, Crime Study Finds

Orange County schools appear much safer from crime than most California campuses, according to a state Department of Education report being released today.

The California Safe Schools Assessment report listed on-campus crimes that had been reported to the state Department of Education during the 1995-96 school year.

In all categories, Orange County’s average crime rates were below the state numbers. For instance, in property crimes--the category with the most reported cases including vandalism, arson and graffiti--the state averaged 4.9 incidents per 1,000 students. Orange County’s figure per capita was 3.8, although the crimes caused damage totaling nearly $700,000.

Drug- and alcohol-related offenses ranked as the second-highest category in Orange County at 2.3 incidents per 1,000 students, about 1.5 points below the state average of 3.8.

The state’s three homicides all occurred in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest school system in the country with an enrollment of 647,612 students last year.

State and local school officials, however, warned that there are serious shortcomings to the statistics.

The data were collected through a newly implemented procedure that was unfamiliar to many school officials. As in any new or revised study, Wednesday’s report contains first-year data that is inaccurate because some schools mistakenly underreported crimes.

“I can’t identify which districts underreported incidents,” said Jean Scott, coordinator of the state department of education’s School Safety Unit. “But none of these was a deliberate or malicious act to withhold information from the state.”

And although school officials were trained in how to report and classify campus crimes, Scott said data from any initial year come with mistakes.

The goal of the study, Scott said, is to track crime statistics in California schools to better determine schools’ needs and how to fight campus violence. The state plans to map trends in campus crime each year.

Orange County school administrators said Wednesday that the report helps put school safety in perspective statewide.

“The message from the report is that schools here are safe,” said Richard Johnson, Capistrano Unified’s director of pupil services, who oversees the district crime reports. “But we haven’t completed our task.

“In coming years, we’ll have better data. This is only a snapshot of where we are. It’s like a photograph compared to a photo album. There’s that one particular picture, and a photo album has so much more value.”

Garden Grove Unified spokesman Alan Trudell agreed, saying that although Orange County schools apparently showed better results, “no level of crime incidents is acceptable.”