Does your child's school have a high crime rate?


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SALT LAKE CITY — Test scores, classroom size and teacher salaries. Those are typically the numbers we talk about when we talk about schools. But what about crime? KSL Investigators looked into the numbers to see which crimes are happening the most and where.

The place: a Utah high school.

The time: 2:30 p.m. after the last bell has rung.

The event: See for yourself. It starts like most fights start. Two kids exchanging words, leading to exchanging shoves and ending with one kid landing a punch. While this seems like a regular occurrence at schools, it's a crime.

"We don't teach crime 101 in our schools, but that doesn't stop crime from coming into our classrooms and having an impact," said Ben Horsley, spokesman for Granite School District.

So what is considered a crime? Bullying, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, assault, arson and weapons are all on the list. That list is kept by the Utah State Board of Education, which tracks crime, or "incidents of prohibited behavior," from every district. Nearly 5,000 incidents occurred statewide during the 2014-15 school year, and those are just the ones reported.

When asked if there are a lot more crimes that go undocumented, the spokesman for the Utah State Board of Education said "absolutely."

"Absolutely there would be ones undocumented, and I'm sure there's an even larger number that go unreported," said Mark Peterson with the Utah State Board of Education. "If a kid shows off a knife to another kid and it never makes its way to a teacher or principal, yes there was an incident of prohibited behavior in that school, and no, it wasn't reported anywhere."

The KSL Investigators dug deeper into the numbers to see which crimes are happening most. The answer? It depends on what district you're in.

"If you have larger numbers of students, generally you're going to have larger numbers of prohibited behavior," explained Peterson.

We examined the school board's most recent data — the 2014-15 school year. Here are some key findings:

  • In elementary schools, the highest number of assaults were in the Granite (142) and Canyons (70) districts.
  • In elementary schools, the most bullying incidents were in Davis (56) and Tooele (58) districts.
  • In middle schools, the Alpine District stands out for the most bullying (107) and for the highest number of handguns discovered (11).
  • In high schools, drugs are the biggest problem. Granite District reports 114 incidents.
  • The highest alcohol use in high schools was reported in the Jordan District (37).
  • Middle schools in many districts have more crime than high schools (1,888 vs. 1,770).
To see a detailed list of what crimes are happening in which districts, click here.

When looking at the sheer number of crimes in schools, the title goes to the Granite District.

"In 2015 alone, we had over 11,000 calls to our police department," Horsley said.

He says the reason crime is higher in the Granite School District is location, location, location.

"We serve communities that have high crime," Horsley said. "And crime and criminals don't stop necessarily when you get to the schoolhouse doors."

Granite is also the only school district to have its own police force. There are 20 full-time officers, like Sgt. Dave Richards. On the day we visited, he was dispatched to an elementary school for an out-of-control student. In this case, the child was threatening to cause harm to herself and possibly school employees.

It's just one of many types of incidents that keep Granite police on their toes.

Another recent incident was when two teens casually dropped off a package in front of an elementary school. Scrawled on the front, a threat that a bomb was inside. Or how about when kids were messing around on the roof of a school and a girl fell straight through the skylight.

"There's a lot of challenges out there today," said Richards.

There's a lot of challenges, but there is good news. School officials say it's a very small number of kids who cause problems, only 2 or 3 percent. And overall, crime is down in the past 10 years. That's a relief for schools doing all they can to keep it out of their classrooms.

"Less crime means more education that's happening, and that's really the primary mission," Horsley said.

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Mike Headrick and Tania Mashburn

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