(TNND) — Over 40% of parents fear for their child's safety at school, as anxiety remains elevated over previous years.

Gallup's latest school safety survey was conducted Aug. 1-20, before the tragic shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school.

Concerns are down a bit from last year, when 44% of parents feared for their child’s safety at school.

But this year’s 41% is above the long-term average of 34%.

Worry hit a record high in 1999 in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre.

But fear eased over the subsequent years until a recent increase.

Parental concern is up among all major demographic, political and socioeconomic subgroups, according to Gallup.

Concern is up 12 percentage points among all parents when comparing the average of the last four years with the average from 2016-19.

Fear is up 13 percentage points among fathers and up 10 percentage points among mothers.

Fear is up for parents with children across grade levels, though it has increased more for parents of elementary and middle school students.

Fear is up across regions.

And fear is up across the political spectrum: up 12 percentage points among Republicans, up 10 percentage points among independents, and up 11 percentage points among Democrats.

Fifteen percent of parents told Gallup that their kid has voiced concern about their safety at school, slightly above the long-term average of 12%.

“Schools are, in general, very safe places for most kids,” said F. Chris Curran, an education scholar who researches school safety. “There are exceptions to that, of course. There are schools that struggle with safety, and kids that experience unsafe conditions, bullying, other sorts of things, on a regular basis."

Curran said parental fears will spike after a school shooting or when they see more stories of school violence in the media.

But he said parents’ fears are also shaped by their children’s day-to-day experiences.

Curran, a former middle school science teacher, said mass shootings are rare.

And he said kids are in just as much danger, sometimes more, outside the school walls.

But if parents and kids don’t feel good about school safety, that can spur other problems.

“We're grappling with things nationally right now like chronic absenteeism,” Curran said. “And we know if parents and kids don't feel safe going to school, or for parents sending their kids to school, that has impacts on attendance rates and absenteeism rates and whether students feel connected to the school."

The FBI published a report a few weeks ago, "Crime in Schools," showing that roughly 1.3 million criminal incidents occurred over the last five years at schools.

The report covered the 2020-24 school years and offered high-level data for school safety policymakers.

There were about 1.5 million victims and about 1.2 million known offenders connected with the reported crimes, which didn’t necessarily take place during the school day.

A wide range of crimes were included in the report, including about 540,000 assaults, about 46,000 sex offenses and just over 200 homicides.

Overall, however, the vast majority of victims either weren’t hurt or suffered only minor injuries.

“At the same time, there's also other kinds of incidents that pose a safety risk but probably are flying a little bit more under the radar,” Curran said. “One of those we see in Florida is the use of tobacco, and specifically vaping. That tends to be in most of our schools here in the state, our highest incident among the 26 or so different incidents that the state tracks.”

Curran said school safety conversations tend to focus on physical threats, but mental and emotional threats are also concerns.

Schools take various steps to protect students, including fencing off school property, hiring security guards, and installing cameras.

Curran said some schools are even deploying artificial intelligence in their camera systems to rapidly detect weapons or fights in a school.

But target-hardening at school can create tensions among students, heightening their awareness of potential risks, Curran said.

And that can negatively impact the day-to-day learning environment, he said.