Delaware school safety

Nationally, 11.3% of schools file so little to the federal Civil Rights Data Collection that we grade their records doubtful. In Delaware, the share is 2.6% — six schools out of 231 in the 2021-22 collection.

That gap is about paperwork, not playgrounds. The collection measures what schools reported, so a low doubtful-reporting share means Delaware's records are mostly ones we can check against the size of the school. It does not mean Delaware children are safer than children elsewhere, and we do not adjust the comparison for state. When one state looks different from another in this data, what you are seeing is a difference in how schools fill out the form.

Here is what the page can tell you. Of the 231 schools, 190 have a published safety score. Each school is compared with roughly 1,500 schools nationwide closest to it in enrollment that teach the same grades. Among the peers that reported something, we take the 25th percentile of their incident rate — a deliberately low bar — and ask whether this school cleared a quarter of it. Schools graded A or B have records we believe, and only those get a score. A C means the school reported almost nothing but is small enough that a true zero is ordinary: not evidence of safety, just not implausible. D and E mean schools of that size normally report several incidents, or ten or more, and this one reported almost none. A school with no score is the method declining to guess.

How Delaware's districts compare

The state has 42 school districts, but only 12 have enough scoreable schools to rank. A district needs a real base of schools with believable records before a ranking means anything, and many Delaware districts are too small for that. Their schools still appear individually.

Caesar Rodney School District ranks safer than 83% of ranked US districts, with 13 of the 15 schools in its scored set complete enough to score. Milford School District ranks safer than 60%, with 5 of 6. Appoquinimink School District and Smyrna School District both rank safer than 50%, with 17 of 20 and 7 of 8. Red Clay Consolidated School District ranks safer than 48%, with 24 of 27. Districts clustered near the middle are close enough that the order between them should not be read as a real difference.

Safest ranked cities in Delaware

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 Delaware city with schools

Every Delaware school district