Records show crime numbers down at most Allegheny County school districts
State records show crime numbers at most Allegheny County school districts are lower than they were before the pandemic hit.
Some districts, including Penn Hills, have taken a new approach to fighting crime.
The number of crimes at Penn Hills schools dropped from 230 in the 2018-19 school year to 105 in 2021-22. The number of fights fell from 106 to 49 during that period.
“School security here is multilayered,” said Superintendent Nancy Hines.
She said the district has traditional school security officers. But it has also started a nontraditional program called YESS – for Youth Engagement School Specialists.
Bill Deeley, who leads the YESS unit at Linton Middle School, said students often reach out to his team if a fight is imminent.
“And we pull those kids right away. We separate them, we talk to them, we have them write statements and then we end up doing a mediation,” he said. “We've intervened where we've stopped several fights just with kids trusting us and the relationships we built.”
The district also changed the look and location of its in-school suspension room at the middle school and began staffing it with a counselor.
“We made it an area that was more student-friendly and not that we're trying to reward poor behavior, but it was more about preserving dignity. You've made some mistakes. We need to look more closely at why you're making those choices or those mistakes,” Hines said.
Penn Hills is not the only district seeing a downward turn in crime.
At Pittsburgh Public Schools, the number of incidents dropped by 16 percent from 2018-19 to 2021-22.
At Oliver Citywide Academy, where a student was fatally shot Wednesday, crime numbers dropped by 49 percent.
At Westinghouse Academy, there was a 65 percent drop in crime. Students said they've noticed.
“There's definitely less fighting than a couple years ago, and you can definitely tell the difference from a couple years ago and now,” said student Lanice Richardson.
“There's more security guards checking book bags more often,” said student Zadaya Bentley.
For all Allegheny County schools, the number of fights is down 9 percent.
The number of aggravated assaults on teachers has fallen by 33 percent.
And the number of aggravated assaults on students is down 43 percent.
One category with more crimes is possession of a weapon. Those numbers are up 16 percent in Allegheny County schools.
“The kids are taking accountability for their own schools,” said Terrence Brown, a security consultant and former Pittsburgh police officer.
He said students are more likely to report concerns than in the past, whether to a guidance counselor or via an app like Safe2Say.
“Years ago, there was a movement of, you know, ‘snitches get stitches,’ we don’t report, we keep everything in-house. And now that's slowly being broken down and eroded away by the administration and the relationships that they have with the kids,” Brown said.
Not every district is seeing a decrease.
Mount Lebanon saw a 47 percent increase in crimes, from 60 to 88.
District spokesperson Kristen James said that represents “a minor increase … compared to the number of enrolled students in our district.”
In Woodland Hills, the number of incidents nearly tripled, from 115 to 300. The district refused to respond to questions about its crime numbers.
In Penn Hills, the security changes have been costly but Hines said they are worth it.
“I'm just thankful that so far we were able to support it because I think we have documented proof that it is working,” she said.
