Connecticut school safety

This page is built on paperwork. Every figure on it comes from the federal Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2021-22 school year, which records what schools told the government about incidents on their campuses. It does not record what happened on those campuses. That distinction runs through everything below.

Of the 1,009 Connecticut schools in that collection, 550 have a published safety score. The rest don't, and that is the method working rather than a hole in it. We score a school by comparing it to roughly 1,500 schools nationally that are closest to it in enrollment and teach the same grade levels. Among the peers that reported something, we take the 25th percentile of the incident rate — a deliberately low bar — and a school reporting less than a quarter of what that implies for its size has not given us evidence of safety. It has given us thin records. We publish a score only where the records hold up.

What this page can and cannot tell you

121 Connecticut schools, 12.0% of the state, land in the grades we call doubtful reporting: D or E. Schools of the same size normally report several incidents, or ten or more, and these reported almost none. Nationally that share is 11.3%, so Connecticut sits close to the national figure. Read that as a statement about filing habits and nothing else. These comparisons are national and are not adjusted for state, because differences between states in this data are differences in reporting behavior, not in child safety. A C grade sits in between: the school reported almost nothing, but it is small enough that a true zero is ordinary. Not proof of safety, not implausible either.

Connecticut has 197 school districts. Thirty-five have enough scoreable schools to be ranked against districts elsewhere, which is why most district pages here carry no rank at all. Among those that do, Glastonbury School District comes out safer than 98% of ranked US districts, with 6 of the 8 schools in its scored set complete enough to score. Capitol Region Education Council is safer than 95%, and scored all 16 schools in its set. East Lyme and Rocky Hill are each safer than 94%, Westport safer than 89%.

So: you can learn whether your child's school filed records we can stand behind, and if so, how its reported rate compares to schools its size nationally. A D or E is not a warning about a building. It is a reason to ask the school what it reported for 2021-22, and whether that matches what you know.

Safest ranked cities in Connecticut

Percentile is against all ranked U.S. cities (higher = safer). Only cities with ≥5 trustworthy-data schools are ranked. Home value is Zillow's ZHVI.

Safest ranked districts

Every Connecticut city with schools

Every Connecticut school district