Violent Deaths At School

In 2019–20, there were a total of 25 school-associated violent deaths in the United States, which included 23 homicides and 1 suicide. Of these 25 school-associated violent deaths, 11 homicides and 1 suicide were of school-age youth (ages 5–18). From 2000 to 2021, there were 276 casualties (108 killed and 168 wounded) in active shooter incidents at elementary and secondary schools and 157 casualties (75 killed and 82 wounded) in active shooter incidents at postsecondary institutions.

Violent deaths and shootings at schools are tragic events with potentially far-reaching effects on the school population and surrounding community. This indicator presents data from multiple sources, each of which collects information based on different definitions of the incidents of interest and highlights different dimensions of school safety. First, this indicator presents data on school-associated violent deaths from the School-Associated Violent Death Surveillance System (SAVD-SS). For context, these data are compared with total homicides and suicides of youth ages 5–18 from the National Vital Statistics System. Next, this indicator turns its focus to shooting incidents. It examines data on school shootings, broadly defined, from the School Shooting Safety Compendium (SSSC) from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) before turning to a narrower measure of active shooter incidents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Data from SAVD-SS and the SSSC cover elementary and secondary education only, while the FBI active shooter data also cover postsecondary education.
Data for each of these three sources on school-associated violent deaths and shootings rely, at least in part, on open-source data, such as media reporting. As a result, the completeness of these data is subject to the comprehensiveness of these public sources, which may vary over time or by type of incident. For instance, media reporting may be more extensive for incidents that are more deadly or unusual or otherwise perceived to be of greater public interest. However, this variance is unknown. Readers should bear this in mind when evaluating findings and making comparisons throughout this indicator.
Data from these sources also cover different periods: the most recent data from SAVD-SS are for 2019–20, the most recent data from the SSSC are for 2020–21, and the most recent data from the FBI are for 2021.1 Beginning around 2000, these data show no consistent trend in the number of school-associated violent deaths or in the number of FBI active shooter incidents in educational environments. However, the SSSC data show an increase in the number of school shootings. Details are discussed below.
Select a subgroup characteristic from the drop-down menu below to view relevant text and figures.