4.2 STUDENT THREAT ASSESSMENT AS A STANDARD SCHOOL SAFETY PRACTICE

Schools are one of the safest places for young people, but high-profile cases of school shootings have driven schools to engage in reactive practices such as expensive security measures and zero tolerance discipline that have had unintended negative effects. More proactive practices are needed to prevent violence, with particular attention to the commonplace types of aggression such as bullying and harassment that have serious consequences for students and can be the seedbeds for more severe violence. Overall, schools should place greater emphasis on multitiered prevention strategies that build a school climate characterized by high academic and behavioral expectations for students in the context of supportive relationships. Schools should also adopt threat assessment as a systematic approach to evaluating and helping troubled students. The overarching idea is that making schools safe and supportive environments that foster student well-being and achievement is vital for the prevention of violence.

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School Security in the Post-Columbine Era: Trends, Consequences, and Future Directions

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice ◽

10.1177/1043986219840188 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 274-295 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Sanna King ◽

Nicole L. Bracy

Keyword(s):

Emergency Preparedness ◽

School Safety ◽

Behavioral Interventions ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Threat Assessment ◽

School Security ◽

Security Measures ◽

Future Directions ◽

Promising Alternative ◽

The Impact

Harsh and reactionary school security measures, including policing, surveillance technology, and emergency preparedness strategies increased substantially in the two decades following the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. These strategies have limited empirical support for preventing violence in general and mass shootings, in particular. Instead, they have proven to be problematic, often doing more harm than good by criminalizing student misbehavior, contributing to negative school climate, and having psychological impacts on students’ perceptions of safety. In recent years, many schools have started to explore promising alternative approaches, including threat assessment, positive behavioral interventions, restorative practices, and improving relationships between students and adults. This article reviews the trends in school security from the 1990s through the present, drawing on national data from the U.S. Department of Education and scholarly research on school security. Our specific focus will be on the changes in school security that have been made to prevent or minimize the impact of potential school shooters. We also discuss the consequences of the school security boom and the future directions to ensure school safety.

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Schools and disasters: Examining the evidence for K-12 settings across the emergency management phases

Journal of Emergency Management ◽

10.5055/jem.0501 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 327-337

Author(s):

Natasha Malmin, MPH ◽

Ann-Margaret Esnard, PhD ◽

Christopher Wyczalkowski, PhD ◽

Betty Lai, PhD

Keyword(s):

Emergency Management ◽

Risk Reduction ◽

School Safety ◽

Disaster Risk Reduction ◽

National Research Council ◽

Threat Assessment ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Policy Practice ◽

Survey And Evaluation ◽

K 12

Disasters may have profound impacts on children and schools. We reviewed the evidence on schools and disasters, and analyzed these impacts across the four main emergency management (EM) phases. We reviewed 190 abstracts from 60 journals published between 2000 and 2019, using the definitions of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery from the National Research Council. Over 48 percent of articles fell within two or more phases, particularly when they addressed popular topics such as disaster risk reduction. School safety and mitigation efforts, curriculum development and awareness training around disaster risk reduction, and the importance of cross-sector collaborations and partnerships emerged as common themes, identifying opportunities for research and practice in the process. A natural next step could be the creation of a centralized online databank for schools and administrators who need access to resources such as survey and evaluation instruments, risk/threat assessment methodologies, cultural competency training modules, and other tool kits. Use of the EM phases increases the ability to exchange ideas and actionable approaches to EM research and policy practice for school-aged children.

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Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model

International Handbook of Threat Assessment ◽

10.1093/med-psych/9780190940164.003.0025 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 439-453

Author(s):

Lina Alathari ◽

Ashley Blair ◽

Catherine Camilletti ◽

Steven Driscoll ◽

Diana Drysdale ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

School Violence ◽

School Safety ◽

Threat Assessment ◽

The United States ◽

Assessment Model ◽

Secret Service ◽

Targeted Violence ◽

K 12 ◽

Threat Assessments

The U.S. Secret Service has a long-standing tradition of conducting threat assessments as part of its mandate to protect the President of the United States and other elected officials. Building on this experience, the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) is dedicated to expanding the field of violence prevention by closely examining the targeted violence that affects communities across the United States, including targeted school violence. This chapter outlines NTAC’s recommendations for implementing behavioral threat assessment teams in K–12 schools, as outlined in Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence (2018).

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