Student Sex-Assault Reports, State-by-State - Education Week
Student-on-student sexual assault is not just a problem on college campuses. It threatens thousands of kids a year in elementary, middle and high schools across America. Rich or poor, urban or rural, no school is immune. AP journalists spent a year investigating sexual assaults in elementary and secondary schools. It found they occurred anywhere students were left unsupervised: buses and bathrooms, hallways and locker rooms. Sometimes, victims and offenders were as young as 5 or 6. This story is part of that reporting project.
Unlike colleges and universities, there are no national requirements for U.S. elementary and secondary schools to track student sexual assaults. But 32 states and the District of Columbia do maintain information, though it is inconsistent and sometimes incomplete, The Associated Press found.
Some states required school districts to log any student sexual assault on school property or at school-sponsored events, but others required reporting of only those assaults resulting in certain types of student discipline. In Michigan, for example, the state counted only expulsions. So one Lansing high school was able to report no sexual assaults in 2015 while AP found a case in which a student was suspended and later charged with criminal sexual conduct. Additionally, some states masked the actual number of student sexual attacks if they fell beneath a certain threshold.
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