School Violence in North Carolina: Impact on Education and Mental Stability

This essay discusses the impact of school violence on education and mental stability of students in North Carolina. It highlights the adverse effects of criminal activities, shootings, and bullying on cognitive development and educational achievements. The essay also provides insights into the rising rate of violent acts in North Carolina schools and the need for preventive measures.

Running head: SCHOOL VIOLENCE IN NORTH CAROLINA
SCHOOL VIOLENCE IN NORTH CAROLINA
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Several young learners suffer traumatic events and challenges in childhood. The
privileged segment of students has been sustained through social supports and aid in order to
effectively determine those complex situations. However for a major section these struggles
might be having adverse impact whereby these social aids would fail to reveal utmost
competence to mitigate these challenges. For such segment of learners, schools provide a critical
as well as contributory role in order to determine the characteristics of each student while
addressing the individual challenges (Helms). The Public School Forum demonstrates a long
history of determining the immensely critical issues encountered by the schools in North
Carolina. The thesis statement of the essay is “high school criminal activities have adverse
impact on the educational culture and mental stability of the students.”
Immense violence and criminal acts among students in high schools have been creating
hindrances and challenges for the young learners of North Carolina from attaining knowledge in
effective manner. The fatal school executions and shootings have revealed adverse impact on
students as well as on the educational institutes whereby these acts have been affecting the
decisions of the students to continue their education and further impacting the cognitive
development (Thapa et al.). It is compelling to state that the critical exposure to aggressive
criminal acts have caused PTSD symptoms on children who have experienced trauma and
sufferings in their schools thus having cognitive consequences. Thus, these exposures towards
such distressing situations have been resulting in damage to the process of memory integration of
students and further causing complexities among the peers (Billings et al.). Studies identify those
experiences towards brutal acts within the elementary schools had been adverse following to the
fatal sniper attack on their school background (Hinchcliffe). However, it has been noted that such
brutality had been worse for all exposure levels which further reveal an elevating rate of anxiety

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and depression of the students who have been exposed towards the high school shooting which
had its occurrence in the elementary schools. Reports claim that among those who had
encountered such brutal acts, over 45% had been categorized as having “severe” PTSD
symptoms and 20% as having ‘moderate’ symptoms who had exhibit a similar account of anxiety
and depression indications (Wolke et al.). It is persuasive to comprehend that acts of school
shootings and brutal acts not only have adverse impact which cause impairments to student
outcomes but acts of bullying have further been distinguished to pose unsympathetic effect on
the youths of North Carolina (Molnar). Furthermore, it has been claimed by researches that the
strong amalgamation of school and neighborhood violence have been posing unconstructive
outcomes thereby impacting the level of educational attainment of the young generation of NC
schools (Hinchcliffe).
Studies further provide contributions through the implementation of immense sadistic
incidents such as school shooting in order to reduce the selection bias which has been produced
by the concentration of violence in the disadvantage and unprivileged localities in North
Carolina. However, with the reasonable conjecture that adverse school shootings had been
exogenous in their own level, the distinguished estimations demonstrate the unbiased
consequences of adverse violence in schools on educational outcomes. Events of brutal acts are
recognized as highly critical for classroom disruptions (Heller et al.). By law, schools have
claimed that such aggressive events in North Carolina schools have created immense rate of
diversions within an academic accomplishment of the students further condensing the
effectiveness of classroom teaching time (Hui). However, critical incidents reflect various
serious events and incidents which have its occurrences on a more frequent basis which can pose
diversions to the pupil’s level of awareness from the educator or lesson (Hui). Thus, such

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adverse acts may restrain or create hindrances to the educational procedures of North Carolina
educational procedures by resulting a rise of concern among individual students and parents
related to the safety of the school environment in comparison to the lessons provided to the
student which have further posed divergences from the objectives and aims of improved level of
educational performances (Damante). It has been persuasive to state the association between
aspects of criminal acts, suspensions and dropouts which have been established by comparing the
annual rates from North Carolina Local Education Agencies (LEAs) (North Carolina Criminal
Justice Analysis Center). There have been witnessed constructive associations between acts of
crime and short term suspension in regards to crime and dropouts and short-term suspension and
dropout. However, it has been noted that such connections does not necessarily occur due to a
single factor but often takes place because of certain underlying factors. Reports claim that one
out of nine North Carolina high school learners have experienced a minimum rate of short-term
deferment in the past two decades (Heller et al.). Furthermore, a major section of students have
encountered single suspension act each year by further focusing on the average total extent of
expedient rate of detentions for high school students who have received for the span of around 7
days.
The number of reportable criminal acts in grades K-13 has witnessed a rise by around 2.5% in
2014-2015 and the rate further increased by 2% (Hui).
Reporting Year Total Criminal Acts Acts per 1000 students in
NC Schools
2010-2011 11,678 8.01
2011-2012 11,000 7.96
2012-2013 10,670 7.87
2013-2014 11,023 7.19
2014-2015 11,179 7.66

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As elementary, middle and high school reveal great degree of divergences in the forms of
criminal acts and critical situational contexts, it has been noted that crimes and violence have
been witnessed at a greater degree at the higher educational level where acts of possession of
weapon, illegal acts, and alcoholic and drug abuse play a critical role. Thus it has been
distinguished that rate of criminal rates pertaining to high school students have undergone a rise
by over 6.5% from 2013-2104 to 2014-2015 (North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center).
Furthermore, the degree of criminal and immoral acts has reportedly witnessed a growth from
6.5% to 13.20 acts per 1000s students in membership (Damante).
Reporting Year Total Criminal Acts Acts per 1000 students in
NC Schools
2010-2011 6,130 14.56
2011-2012 5,987 14.16
2012-2013 5,767 13.15
2013-2014 5,476 12.46
2014-2015 5,985 13.57
With the recent acts of threats of atrocities at North Carolina schools led a wide range of
students to possess firearms or weapons at school premises. Such illicit events have led North
Carolina legal authorities to detain a major section of high school students of Kernersville,
Raleigh and Winston-Salem in 2013 for the possession of arms without any legal authorization
(Hinchcliffe). It is persuasive to note that these events have a lower rate of occurrences in
comparison to other criminal acts but have the propensity to gather the awareness of media,
public and most importantly the parents (Wolke et al.). However, it is significant to note that
there cannot be found any vital framework which can effectively distinguish the competency

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level and willingness of individuals to engage into the acts of brutality at the school and cause
adverse impact on the cognitive development and educational achievements of the youths of
North Carolina (North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center). For the elevating rate of
violent acts pertaining in North Carolina schools, a single policy or tool does not demonstrate
any effective level of ability to cause prevention or deter such acts.
However, to conclude it can be noted that around 150 organizations along with 250
individual observers and practitioners have claimed that proper equilibrium, communication,
consistency and support can play an influential role in order to successfully prevent the schools
of North Carolina from such severe acts of violence and atrocities. Thus, any vital approach to
hostility prevention must poise the proposed mechanisms to ascertain the physical safety,
advanced education as well as the mental stability and growth of the students in terms of social,
behavioral and emotional needs.

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References
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attainment, and crime: Evidence from the end of busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg." The
Quarterly Journal of Economics 129.1 (2013): 435-476.
Damante, Rebecca. "Can Education Reduce Prejudice Against LGBT People?." The Century
Foundation. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 July 2018.
Heller, Sara, et al. Preventing youth violence and dropout: A randomized field experiment. No.
w19014. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013.
Helms, Ann Doss. "Gun Reports In CMS Hit A 10-Year High. Here’S Where They Were
Found.." The Charlotte Observer. N.p., 2018. Web. 9 July 2018.
Hinchcliffe, Kelly. "Crime, Dropout Rates Increase In NC Schools :: WRAL.Com." WRAL.com.
N.p., 2016. Web. 9 July 2018.
Hui, T. Keung. "NC School Leaders Want To Crack Down On School Threats, Which Have
Risen 300% In US." Charlotteobserver. N.p., 2018. Web. 9 July 2018.
Hui, T. Keung. "Why NC Leaders Think More Nurses, Counselors And Social Workers Could
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Molnar, Alex. School commercialism: From democratic ideal to market commodity. Routledge,
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North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center, " The nature of school violence in north
carolina and perceptions of school violence among school officials ". North carolina department
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Thapa, Amrit, et al. "A review of school climate research." Review of educational research 83.3
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