185 weapons, seven guns reported at Wake County high schools, recent data shows

In the hours after a 15-year-old boy was fatally stabbed at Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School, WRAL Data Trackers began looking anting to know how many times weapons had been located at this high school and at others in the district.

During the 2021-2022 school year, there were seven guns and 185 weapons located at all found at all Wake County high schools, according to the information reported to the state Department of Public Instruction.

There were almost two dozen incidents where weapons were involved at Leesville High School – the most of any school in the county. Rolesville had 17 while Southeast and Wakefield both reported 13.

These weapons can be anything from a BB or stun gun to switchblades, razors and brass knuckles.

State law requires schools to report numbers for 16 offenses. Most of the reports – about three out of every five – are for drugs on campus. The other acts of violence and crime tracked include assault on school personnel, bomb threats, sexual assault. 

To make sure they have an accurate comparison, the state looks at rates per 1,000 students enrolled. At Rolesville, there are 43 reportable offenses for every 1,000 students. That means those kids are 2.6 times more likely to see or experience one of these crimes or acts of violence than a student at the average Wake County high school, according to the data. Those enrolled at East Wake High and Leesville also have rates double the district’s for all high schools which sits at 16.89 acts.

That's above the state's, too, which is at 13.16.

Some schools have considerably lower rates. Wake STEM didn't report any offenses during the 2021 school year, according to the data. Green Level, Enloe, Green Hope and Apex high schools are the schools with the lowest occurrences per population.

In all, 869 criminal incidents were reported across Wake County public high schools for the most recent school year we have complete data for. That's the most most of any school district across the state but Wake County also has the largest school system in the state. So, when we look at high school rates across the state, Wake is further down the list--number 30 out of 115 school systems in North Carolina.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the second largest system in the state, has a higher rate than Wake, at 18. The highest rates of crime and violence in high schools are actually in two small northeastern North Carolina school systems: Hyde and Hertford counties.

Some other local school districts' high schools have rates above 20 including Harnett, Granville and Lee counties.

Locally, high schools in Orange, Durham and Cumberland counties all have reportable crime rates higher than Wake County.

Edgecombe, Nash and Vance counties have the lowest rates of local high schools.