At Bronx charters, teachers feel safe and students don't
The question
Which New York City schools have the biggest gap between how safe teachers feel and how safe their students feel?
At eight New York City schools, teachers and students disagree about how safe the school is by 25 to 40 percentage points. Bronx Charter School for Excellence 3 tops the list: teachers rate safety at 98%, students at 58% — a 40-point gap. Six of the eight largest gap schools are charters; charter networks (Explore, Excellence, Girls Prep, Lavelle) show up more than once. The pattern fits adults and students rating different parts of the school day — teachers seeing managed classroom time, students experiencing the hallway and bathroom dynamics that teachers don't observe.
Data analysis
Investigation run 2026-05-31.
TL;DR
Six of the eight schools with the biggest teacher-student safety perception gaps are charters, most in the Bronx and Brooklyn. At Bronx Charter School for Excellence 3, teachers rate safety at 98%, students at 58% — a 40-percentage-point gap. The pattern fits adults and students rating different parts of the school day: teachers see managed classroom time, students experience hallway and bathroom dynamics teachers don't observe.
Top 8 teacher-student safety perception gaps (2023-24)
| School | Borough | Teacher safety % | Student safety % | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronx Charter School for Excellence 3 | Bronx | 97.8 | 57.6 | 40.2 |
| Explore Excel Charter | Brooklyn | 100 | 65.8 | 34.2 |
| Explore Charter School | Brooklyn | 95.5 | 67.8 | 27.7 |
| Girls Prep Charter (Manhattan) | Manhattan | 90 | 62.6 | 27.4 |
| P.S. 723 (District 75) | Bronx | 93.3 | 67 | 26.3 |
| P.S. 181 Brooklyn | Brooklyn | 93.5 | 67.8 | 25.7 |
| P.S./I.S. 266 | Queens | 100 | 75 | 25 |
| John W. Lavelle Prep Charter | Staten Island | 97.5 | 72.6 | 24.9 |
The charter pattern
Six of the eight largest-gap schools are charters. Charter networks (Explore, Excellence, Girls Prep, Lavelle) show up more than once. Charters often market themselves on safety and order, and the teacher responses match that framing. Student responses diverge from teacher responses by 25 to 40 percentage points on the same survey item.
Hypotheses worth checking on the ground
First, teachers see managed instructional environments; students see hallway and bathroom dynamics that teachers don't witness directly. Second, charter culture emphasizes order — teachers may measure 'safe' as 'orderly,' while students measure 'safe' as 'I don't fear my classmates.' Third, teacher survey selection bias: newer or more institutionally loyal teachers may be over-represented among respondents. Fourth, student safety expectations may have shifted post-COVID in ways that adult expectations haven't caught up to.
Where the gap goes the other way
About 30 New York City schools have student safety scores more than 10 percentage points higher than teacher safety scores. These are typically large high schools, where teachers face issues — property crime, classroom management — that students don't experience directly. The reverse pattern is interesting in its own right and gets little coverage.
What's next
Visit Bronx Charter School for Excellence 3. Shadow students for a day. Compare the teacher safety logbook with the student survey responses.
Methodology & replication recipe — the data sources, queries, and steps behind this analysis.