Poll: 41% of parents worried about school safety before Minneapolis shooting

Four in 10 parents of K-12 students are worried for their children’s safety at school, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll was collected before the school shooting that took place in Minneapolis on Wednesday, and is part of a multi-year trend showing an uptick in parental concern for school safety. 

Gallup has monitored parental concern in this area for nearly three decades since 1998. The latest figure of 41% is higher than the long-term average of 34% and “is consistent with readings from the past three years, ranging from 38% to 44%,” according to Gallup Senior Editor Lydia Saad.

Parental concern reached an all-time high in 1999 at 55% after the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, where 14 were killed, 21 were wounded and the two shooters also took their own lives. It tapered down from there to an all-time low of just 15% in 2008, but has generally been on the rise since, dipping slightly before the 2017-18 school year. 

The number of concerned parents rose by 10% from 2019 to 2022, from 34% to 44%, in line with an increase in school shootings since the pandemic. (Gallup did not survey parents in 2020 or 2021 due to school closures during the pandemic).