Virginia school safety

Almost everything on this page turns on a single question: does a school's own reported count of incidents hold up for a school its size? In the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection, most Virginia schools' numbers do.

Sixty-one schools in the state land in our doubtful-reporting grades, D or E — schools where places of the same size and grade span normally report several incidents, or ten or more, and this one reported almost none. That is 2.9% of Virginia's schools. Nationally the same share is 11.3%. Read that as a statement about paperwork, not about children. A D or an E means records we cannot verify. It is not a finding of violence, and a low state share is not evidence that Virginia schools are safer than schools elsewhere. We do not adjust the comparison for state, because differences between states in this collection are differences in reporting behavior.

Virginia has 2,135 schools in the collection, and 1,516 of them carry a published safety score. We publish a score only for schools graded A or B — the records we believe. Schools graded C reported almost nothing but are small enough that a true zero is ordinary; that is not evidence of safety either, so we leave the score blank. A missing score is the method working, not a hole in it.

Why most districts aren't ranked

The state has 211 school districts. Sixty-four have enough scoreable schools for a district ranking to mean anything. The rest are small, or their schools mostly fall outside the grades we score, and we would rather show nothing than a rank built on two or three buildings.

Among the ranked districts, York Co Pblc Schs comes out safer than 95% of ranked U.S. districts, with 18 of the 19 schools in its scored set complete enough to score. Page Co Pblc Schs is safer than 80%, with 7 of 8. Arlington Co Pblc Schs is safer than 77%, though only 21 of the 42 schools in its scored set have records complete enough to score — a thinner base than the others. Richmond City Pblc Schs and Spotsylvania Co Pblc Schs each come out safer than 76%, with 41 of 47 and 31 of 33 respectively.

Look up your school below. Start with whether it has a score at all.

Safest ranked cities in Virginia

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 Virginia city with schools

Every Virginia school district