Here are some of the best questions for a student survey about school safety, along with tips on building them. With Specific, you can generate your student survey in seconds, making it easier than ever to get honest, actionable insights right away.

10 best open-ended questions for student survey about school safety

Open-ended questions are essential when we want to hear students' voices in their own words. These questions let people share thoughts without restriction—perfect for uncovering new issues or deeper feelings you didn’t even know to ask about. Especially in sensitive topics like school safety, this flexibility builds trust and leads to richer, more revealing insights.

Here are ten open-ended questions we find most effective for a school safety survey targeting students:

1. Can you describe a time when you felt particularly safe or unsafe at school?

2. What would help you feel safer during the school day?

3. How do you usually report concerns about safety, and how comfortable do you feel doing so?

4. What changes do you think your school could make to improve safety?

5. If you could share one message with school leaders about student safety, what would it be?

6. How do adult staff members help—or not help—make you feel safe at school?

7. Are there specific places on campus where you feel less safe? Why?

8. What types of behaviors from other students make you feel uncomfortable at school?

9. Have there been times you wanted to speak up about safety but didn’t? What stopped you?

10. What does "school safety" mean to you personally?

These questions invite honest stories and perspectives, which help close the perception gap—87% of educators think students feel safe at school, but only 68% of students report actually feeling safe themselves. [2]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for measuring safety

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect for when you need to quantify opinions quickly or compare groups at-a-glance. Sometimes, students find it easier to choose from a handful of options instead of crafting a full answer—that’s how you kick off the conversation before diving deeper with follow-ups.

Here are three of our favorites:

Question: How safe do you feel at school on a typical day?

• Very safe

• Somewhat safe

• Not safe

• Not sure

Question: Which area at school feels the least safe to you?

• Classrooms

• Hallways

• Cafeteria

• Gymnasium or sports areas

• Playground/outdoor spaces

• Other

Question: If you witness unsafe behavior, how likely are you to report it?

• Very likely

• Somewhat likely

• Not likely

• Not sure

When to follow up with "why?" Often, after a student tells us they feel “not safe” in a certain area, or say they’re “not likely” to report something, a follow-up “why?” can uncover root causes. For instance, if someone picks “not likely,” a simple “Why don’t you feel comfortable reporting unsafe behavior?” can reveal whether it’s due to fear, lack of trust, or something else.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add “Other” when your choices can’t possibly cover every situation. Follow-up questions on “Other” are gold mines—these open the door for students to share unexpected or rare concerns that don't fit neatly into your original list.

NPS-style question for measuring overall sense of safety

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question isn’t just for brands—it shines when measuring broad sentiment like school safety. An NPS-style question asks: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your school as a safe place to friends or family?” This lets students easily express how secure they really feel in school, and instantly shows overall trends for administrators. You can build this type of NPS survey quickly with Specific.

It also supports detailed follow-ups: students who score low can be asked for specific reasons. Since a recent study revealed that in 2022, 44% of U.S. parents feared for their child’s safety at school—a big jump from prior years—tracking sentiment over time helps surface and address fresh safety worries as they arise. [1]

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are at the heart of revealing what truly matters to students. That’s where Specific excels: our automatic, AI-generated followups keep the conversation rolling after each response, just like a human interviewer would.

Because the AI tailors follow-ups in real time, you quickly get specific, meaningful details that a standard form would miss. Consider this:

• Student: “I feel unsafe in the hallways.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me what specifically about the hallways makes you feel unsafe?”

If we didn’t ask, all we’d know is “hallways are a problem”—but not if it’s due to bullying, poor lighting, or crowding. This method can capture why the state’s Safe2Tell hotline saw a 25% rise in reports last year—a sign that safety issues are both rising and changing in nature. [3]

How many followups to ask? We usually recommend two or three. After that, allow the respondent to move on—you want them to feel heard, not interrogated. Specific lets you set follow-up depth, so the AI won’t press for more detail than you need.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of feeling like another form, students experience a real, two-way discussion. Engagement goes up, and responses are much more thoughtful.

AI survey response analysis and summarization: Even with dozens or hundreds of long-form answers, analyzing results is easy. Instead of manual review, check out how AI-powered survey analysis instantly summarizes insights so you can take action faster.

Automated, AI follow-ups are a new way of thinking—try generating a survey to see the experience for yourself.

How to compose a prompt for AI to generate student safety survey questions

Getting great survey questions from AI starts with a good prompt. Start simple:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for student survey about school safety.

But AI always works better when you give it more context about your goals or your unique school situation. For example:

Our school recently increased security measures, but we want to understand how students feel and what areas worry them most. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a student safety survey that include space for stories and suggestions.

Next, instruct AI to help organize your questions:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Once you spot relevant categories—like “physical safety,” “reporting unsafe behavior,” or “adult supervision”—ask the AI to go deeper:

Generate 10 questions about adult supervision and 10 about reporting unsafe behavior for a student safety survey.

This layered approach makes the AI a true research partner—just like chatting with a brainy colleague who never gets tired.

What is a conversational survey, and why use AI to make it?

Conversational surveys are what they sound like: AI-powered chat surveys that hold a real-time discussion, picking up on each student’s response. Specific’s conversational surveys automatically react with clarifying or deeper questions, so feedback feels personalized and engaging from start to finish.

Why use AI for student surveys? School safety is nuanced. AI survey builders let us instantly tailor questions, adapt to student feedback in the moment, and analyze complex responses in seconds—without manual grunt work. This enables faster, braver improvements for students’ wellbeing, and it’s much easier to scale and iterate as concerns evolve.

If you want to see how this works, read our guide to building a student safety survey step by step.

With Specific, we combine these strengths for the smoothest, most conversational survey process out there, for both creators and respondents.

See this school safety survey example now

Ready to uncover what matters most to your students? Start your survey to capture authentic feedback and unlock deeper, actionable insights in one place.