Student Threat Assessment in Memphis City Schools: A Descriptive Report

Threat assessment has been widely recommended as a violence prevention approach for schools, but there are few reports of its implementation. Memphis City Schools adapted the Virginia threat assessment guidelines (Cornell & Sheras, 2006) for use by a centralized team serving 194 schools and a student population of 118,000. This article describes 209 student threats referred for assessment during a single school year and the resulting educational placements and disciplinary consequences. There were no reports of students carrying out any of the violent threats. These results support further examination of student threat assessment as a promising approach to dealing with student threats.