In a national survey on K-12 school safety, only 15% of top school administrators ranked their districts as highly prepared to handle school bus safety incidents.

The “State of School Safety in America” survey was completed by more than 350 high-ranking school administrators across 48 states and was conducted by SchoolReach, a provider of school communications technology.

Besides the topic of school bus safety, survey respondents provided their views on a broad range of safety issues, including school shooting preparedness, lockdown operations, bullying prevention and emergency response. “According to our survey, school bus safety is an issue that many school leaders feel only moderately prepared to handle,” said Paul Langhorst, co-founder of SchoolReach. “Our data shows that this is an area school leaders should be focusing on.”

The survey also discovered that bus bullying is a problem that many schools and districts are dealing with. When provided with a list of eight different locations, survey respondents ranked the school bus as one of the top four sites where students are reporting bullying.

“93% of survey respondents had received student reports about bullying or cyberbullying,” Langhorst said. “The fact that school bus bullying was identified as a top concern should remind all school leaders that bullying can happen anywhere.”

School leaders can download a summary of the “State of School Safety in America” survey results at schoolreach.com/safetyreport.