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Showing 1 – 21 of 21 results.
Curated

Assessing the Role of Immigration in the Linkage Between School Safety, Education, and Juvenile Justice Contact, Texas, 2000-2019 (ICPSR 38260)

Released/updated on: 2022-08-30
Geographic coverage: United States, Texas
Time period: 2000-01-01--2001-01-01, 2001-01-01--2002-01-01

This project utilizes secondary data analysis of existing data. Recognizing that the school discipline and juvenile justice experience of immigrants may differ from non-immigrant children, the project explores the role immigration status and border location has on these outcomes.

Curated

Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Implications of Removing Police from Schools for Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Justice System, United States, 2003-2018 (ICPSR 39189)

Released/updated on: 2024-11-20
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2003-01-01--2018-12-31

Momentum toward removing school-based law enforcement (SBLE) has increased since the summer of 2020. This change has occurred due to issues of equity with the hope that removing SBLE will reduce existing racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. SBLE refers to sworn law enforcement stationed in schools on either a part- or full-time basis. Some SBLE are known as school resource officers, who often receive special training in juvenile law and interacting with students in schools, although this varies from state to state. Other SBLE do not receive any special training in working with young people.

Although the move toward removing SBLE may have intuitive appeal to some school districts, no empirical evidence exists regarding what happens to students' frequency of contact with the criminal justice system after schools remove SBLE. Similarly, current research has not examined the impacts on the attendant racial and ethnic disparities.

All the data used in this study are secondary data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), including both the publicly available Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) and the restricted-use School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). All data cleaning, manipulation, and analysis will be done using syntax files in Stata. This study is a collection of these three Stata .do syntax files.

This study compared changes in three measures of criminal justice contact (i.e., arrests, referrals to law enforcement, and crimes reported to police) in schools that removed SBLE relative to the changes in schools that did not remove SBLE. The study examined within-school racial and ethnic differences in rates of arrest and referrals to law enforcement, and between-school differences in all three measures of criminal justice system contact by school racial composition.

Curated

Brevard Public Schools School Climate and Safety Study, Florida, 2015-2018 (ICPSR 37680)

Released/updated on: 2024-03-27
Geographic coverage: Brevard County, United States, Florida
Time period: 2015-01-01--2018-01-01
The Brevard County (Florida) School Board conducted a school climate and safety study between the years of 2015 and 2018 with students, school personnel, and school resource officers from law enforcement. The purpose of the study was to implement a comprehensive mental health program that involved placing social workers in schools. The intervention involved training personnel on youth mental health and an emotion regulation intervention for high discipline youth. The evaluation of the program involved pretest/posttest assessments of the trainings, and surveys of students and school personnel to assess improvements in the school environment. The evaluation of the program was a nonexperimental, longitudinal study.
Curated

A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of the Safe Public Spaces in Schools Program, New York City, 2016-2018 (ICPSR 37476)

Released/updated on: 2021-04-28
Geographic coverage: New York City, United States, New York (state)
Time period: 2016-09-01--2018-06-30

This study tests the efficacy of an intervention--Safe Public Spaces (SPS) -- focused on improving the safety of public spaces in schools, such as hallways, cafeterias, and stairwells. Twenty-four schools with middle grades in a large urban area were recruited for participation and were pair-matched and then assigned to either treatment or control. The study comprises four components: an implementation evaluation, a cost study, an impact study, and a community crime study.

Community-crime-study: The community crime study used the arrest of juveniles from the NYPD (New York Police Department) data. The data can be found at (https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Arrests-Data-Historic-/8h9b-rp9u). Data include all arrest for the juvenile crime during the life of the intervention. The 12 matched schools were identified and geo-mapped using Quantum GIS (QGIS) 3.8 software. Block groups in the 2010 US Census in which the schools reside and neighboring block groups were mapped into micro-areas. This resulted in twelve experimental school blocks and 11 control blocks which the schools reside (two of the control schools existed in the same census block group). Additionally, neighboring blocks using were geo-mapped into 70 experimental and 77 control adjacent block groups (see map). Finally, juvenile arrests were mapped into experimental and control areas. Using the ARIMA time-series method in Stata 15 statistical software package, arrest data were analyzed to compare the change in juvenile arrests in the experimental and control sites.

Cost-study: For the cost study, information from the implementing organization (Engaging Schools) was combined with data from phone conversations and follow-up communications with staff in school sites to populate a Resource Cost Model. The Resource Cost Model Excel file will be provided for archiving. This file contains details on the staff time and materials allocated to the intervention, as well as the NYC prices in 2018 US dollars associated with each element. Prices were gathered from multiple sources, including actual NYC DOE data on salaries for position types for which these data were available and district salary schedules for the other staff types. Census data were used to calculate benefits.

Impact-evaluation: The impact evaluation was conducted using data from the Research Alliance for New York City Schools. Among the core functions of the Research Alliance is maintaining a unique archive of longitudinal data on NYC schools to support ongoing research. The Research Alliance builds and maintains an archive of longitudinal data about NYC schools. Their agreement with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) outlines the data they receive, the process they use to obtain it, and the security measures to keep it safe.

Implementation-study: The implementation study comprises the baseline survey and observation data. Interview transcripts are not archived.

Curated

Comprehensive Longitudinal Study of School Violence and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Root Causes and Consequences of and Implications for Restorative Justice Approaches, Oregon, 2004-2015 (ICPSR 37830)

Released/updated on: 2026-02-11
Geographic coverage: Oregon, United States
Time period: 2004-01-01--2015-01-01

This study used a multi-systems approach to understand the root causes of school violence in the state of Oregon (United States), accounting for factors within the individual, family, school, juvenile justice, child protective services, and social services systems and how they work together in predicting school violence. The effort was guided by four Research Questions:

  1. What are the potential root causes and related factors that contribute to school violence?
  2. What are the disciplinary responses to school violence, and are rates of suspensions and expulsions equivalent across demographic subgroups of students?
  3. What is the sequence of events that lead from a school-related disciplinary incident to an arrest and to juvenile or adult court involvement and disposition, and which individual, family, school, and neighborhood factors influence this trajectory?
  4. What are the responses to and consequences of shootings in K-12 public settings?

To answer these questions, RMC Research, with support from the the Oregon Youth Authority (OYA) and the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), conducted a secondary analysis of existing data on 15 cohorts of students between kindergarten and grade 12. Research Questions 1, 2, and 3 were addressed using a multi-level cohort design with longitudinal data provided by OYA (n=5,129,815 observations across time from 855,580 unique youth). Research Question 4 was addressed through an extensive review of research on school safety strategies.

This collection contains 16 SPSS syntax files used to clean and analyze the secondary data, detailed guides to data preparation and data-related decisions made by the research team, and a list of obtained data files and variables. There are no data files in this collection.

Curated
Simple Crosstabs

Comprehensive School Safety in Atlanta Public Schools, Georgia, 2015-2021 (ICPSR 38459)

Released/updated on: 2026-04-16
Geographic coverage: United States, Atlanta, Georgia
Time period: 2015-01-01--2021-12-31

The Comprehensive School Safety Initiative (CSSI) is a research-focused initiative that was launched by the National Institute of Justice in response to high-profile incidents of school violence. The CSSI grant program aimed to identify and understand the root causes of school violence and identify effective strategies for responding to and resolving safety and security issues. The Atlanta Comprehensive School Safety Initiative (Atlanta CSSI) project, funded in 2016 under the National Institute of Justice's CSSI grant program, and as a partnership between researchers and practitioners, centered around the fundamental question of how to design and implement safe and supportive learning environments for students in Atlanta Public Schools (APS).

Since 2014, district leadership from APS and researchers from WestEd and Georgia State University (GSU) developed a blended research and technical assistance approach to make progress towards improving school safety. The findings are based on data gathered through:

  1. focus groups with school-and district-based staff;
  2. observational protocols and meeting notes; and
  3. school-level student climate and discipline data gathered by the state.
Curated

Cross-Site Analysis and Case Study of STOP Program Grantee Perspectives on Violence Prevention and Mental Health Training Program Implementation, United States, 2021-2023 (ICPSR 38878)

Released/updated on: 2024-08-28
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2021-01-01--2023-06-30

The Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act was enacted in 2018 to improve school safety by providing grants to states, local governments, and Indian tribes in the United States. Under this legislation, the Bureau of Justice Administration (BJA) was allocated $50 million per year to dedicate to grants for mental health and violence prevention training and education for school personnel and students, as well as the development or enhancement of threat assessment systems and crisis response teams. In the first two years, 2018 and 2019, 43 and 85 grantees were awarded funding for STOP programs, respectively. In 2020, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded funding to researchers to study the implementation of the first STOP programs. A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of South Florida Child and Family Studies Department and the College of Education received an NIJ grant to study the STOP programs from the first two years of the grant program.

The research questions guiding this study were:

  1. How have diverse stakeholders (e.g., school administrators, school-based and community mental health professionals, teachers, student and families, law enforcement/SROs, policymakers) been involved in the various stages of implementation?
  2. How have violence prevention and mental health training programs reflected community needs?
  3. What are the perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing violence prevention and mental health training programs across grantee sites?
  4. How do various components of the implementation process contribute to satisfaction with implementation at different stages among stakeholders?
  5. What measures are in place to evaluate and inform continuous implementation processes, and where do opportunities and needs exist for incorporating feedback to strengthen overall implementation?

This mixed-methods study included a cross-site survey and a case study analysis. The cross-site survey was sent to representatives from 128 grantee U.S. agencies who were involved in implementing programs or training from STOP grants (final n=90 respondents). Questions in the survey asked about implementation factors, barriers and facilitators to implementation, the capacity of schools at each site to address mental health, satisfaction of the implementation process, and how COVID-19 has impacted the implementation of STOP programs. There was also an opportunity to share open feedback. This survey was administered in July 2021 and in July 2022. The case study was an in-depth analysis of a smaller sample of grantee agencies. The researchers conducted stakeholder interviews, meeting observations, and document review to gain insights on participant experiences with implementation of STOP programs and what social, political, and cultural factors may have affected implementation.

Curated

Examining the Efficacy of Circles on School Safety and Student Outcomes in Boston Public Schools, Massachusetts, 2017-2020 (ICPSR 39254)

Released/updated on: 2025-12-02
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2017-01-01--2018-01-01, 2018-01-01--2019-01-01, 2019-01-01--2020-01-01
There is increasing evidence that promoting social-emotional learning and positive teacher-student relationships can prevent school violence. Many schools are turning to restorative practices to promote safe schools. When engaging in restorative practices, the emphasize focuses on learning and growth. When harm has occurred, restorative practices emphasize communication and accountability. Restorative practices in schools have been associated with decreased bullying and school violence, improvements in positive school climate and decreased use of suspensions. The current study presents implementation and impact findings of a cluster randomized control trial examining a school-wide restorative practices model called Circle Forward.
Curated
Partially restricted
Simple Crosstabs

Impact of School Police Reform on Student Safety and School Experiences, California, 2017-2022 (ICPSR 39454)

Released/updated on: 2026-07-16
Geographic coverage: United States, California
Time period: 2017-08-01--2022-06-30

This study examined the impact of policy changes resulting in the removal of school police on student outcomes. The study took advantage of recent widespread school police policy changes in California and extant survey and administrative data, and used a quasi-experimental study to compare school districts that removed school police during 2019-20 or 2020-21 with a matched comparison group of districts that did not remove school police. The study examined the impact of such policies on middle and high school students' reported safety, behavior, and well-being as well as administrative disciplinary data (suspensions).

This study also examined whether school police policy changes had differential impacts depending on the level of schools' mental health supports (student-to-counselor ratio). Finally, researchers conducted interviews with a sample of administrators and partnering community-based providers to identify the reasons for, and impact of, removing or retaining school police as well as policies and practices implemented as alternatives. There are no impact studies, to the researchers' knowledge, that examined the impact of removing school police. This study's findings are critical to understanding how the presence of police in schools relate to student outcomes.

Curated

An Investigation of School Resource and Safety Programs Policy and Practice in Virginia, 2016-2019 (ICPSR 37685)

Released/updated on: 2023-05-30
Geographic coverage: United States, Virginia
Time period: 2016-01-01--2019-12-31

This study seeks to inform about the effectiveness and impact of school safety programs in the state of Virginia. In many Virginia schools, ensuring school safety often involves the use of School Resource Officers (SRO) and School Security Officers (SSO), or some combination of SROs and SSOs. This study investigated the current state of SRO and SSO programs in Virginia to illuminate how SRO and SSO programs are operating and uncover best practices associated with program development, implementation, and evaluation. Specifically, the research questions were:

  • RQ1: How are SROs and SSOs trained to operate in K-12 public schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia?
  • RQ2:What are the criteria that are being used to select SROs and SSOs to operate in schools?
  • RQ3: How are the activities of SROs and SSOs that do not result in an arrest being documented?
  • RQ4: How are SROs and SSOs operating in schools supervised by their own department and/or by the school(s) in which they operate?
  • RQ5: What criteria are used to assess SRO and SSO performance?
  • RQ6: To what extent are SROs and SSOs involved addressing school disciplinary matters that do not rise to the level of criminal activity?
  • RQ7: Are there differences when comparing between school districts that have MOUs with local law enforcement, and school districts that do not have formal arrangements with local law enforcement?
Curated

Mapping Decision Points from School-based Incidents to Exclusionary Discipline, Arrest, and Referral to the Juvenile Justice System, United States, 2016-2018 (ICPSR 37498)

Released/updated on: 2024-05-15
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2016-01-01--2018-01-01

This two-phase study examined factors influencing decisions that lead from a school-based incident to exclusionary discipline, an arrest, and a referral to the juvenile court. The research team hypothesized that multiple external factors such as race identity, socioeconomic status, and others would negatively impact the decision-maker, and generate harsher punishments for those who are in these vulnerable groups. Phase 1 involved interviewing groups of key stakeholders including school administrators, district administrators, discipline coordinators, juvenile court judges and other staff, law enforcement officers, Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) coordinators, and child welfare agencies to understand their approaches to behavior management. Phase 2 involved secondary analysis of data from local school districts and the juvenile court with jurisdiction in two counties.

Curated

Nashville Longitudinal Study of Youth Safety and Wellbeing, Tennessee, 2009-2022 (ICPSR 38804)

Released/updated on: 2026-02-25
Geographic coverage: Tennessee, Nashville
Time period: 2009-01-01--2021-01-01, 2012-01-01--2021-01-01, 2019-01-01--2021-01-01, 2019-01-01--2021-01-01, 2019-01-01--2021-01-01, 2021-01-01--2022-01-01, 2015-01-01--2022-01-01, 2014-01-01--2021-01-01, 2010-01-01--2019-01-01, 2018-01-01--2021-01-01, 2020-01-01--2021-01-01

The Nashville Longitudinal Study of Youth Safety and Wellbeing (NLSYSW) was created to provide multi-level, multi-sector, longitudinal data on key ecological and developmental factors that impact youth violence and school safety. The data collected for this study include longitudinal survey and administrative data on disciplinary referrals and sanctions, social emotional competencies, school climate, community violence exposure, and attitudes toward violence from students in grades kindergarten through 12 in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) school district. In addition, this collection includes measures of several ecological influences, including school environment (e.g., programs/interventions offered, climate, and school safety) and neighborhood context (e.g., neighborhood economic structure, assets and resources, crime, gun violence, and housing) that can be linked to student data via neighborhood. The data provided spans the period of 2009 through 2022, with most intense coverage of 2018 through 2021.

These data have been utilized by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, educators, city government officials, police, juvenile courts, and youth development workers to support school and community initiatives related to understanding a) the role of neighborhood exposure to violence and disadvantage on students' norms/attitudes, behaviors, and achievement, b) the role of school climate and access to resources in moderating neighborhood and student risk factors, c) the neighborhood, school, and individual factors that influence students' social and emotional competence, and d) the neighborhood, school, and student factors that affect racial/ethnic disparities in office disciplinary referrals and the use of exclusionary discipline.

Demographic information at the student-level includes grade, gender, and race/ethnicity. At the school building-level, White, Black, and Hispanic staff percentages are provided.

Curated

Project SOARS: Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety, Illinois and Oregon, 2016-2020 (ICPSR 37896)

Released/updated on: 2024-01-16
Geographic coverage: Oregon, United States, Illinois
Time period: 2018-01-01--2019-01-01, 2019-01-01--2020-01-01

Project SOARS (Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety) utilized a mixed-methods study design to develop and test a student-centered and technology-driven school safety framework to address peer victimization, violent behavior, and student reluctance to share critical safety information within high school settings. SOARS was a project of IRIS Media, Inc. and consisted of 4 phases implemented between 2016 and 2020. Activities for each phase were carried out in Oregon and Illinois high schools in order to facilitate inter-site replication of outcomes. Phase 1 was conducted in 2016 and consisted of focus groups and key informant interviews with students, school personnel, and parents to gather perceptions of current school safety practices. Phase 2 was undertaken in 2017 and asked students, school personnel, and parents to assess the acceptability and usability of prototypes of the SOARS framework. The SOARS framework consisted of (a) the Advocatr mobile app, which allowed students to report positive and negative behaviors in their school environment; (b) a 9-week curriculum engaging students with the concepts of student ownership of school safety, advocacy/self-advocacy, physical and emotional safety, and restorative conflict resolution; (c) informational briefs for school personnel and parents about the framework components and their rationale; and (d) guidelines for a student-led school-wide safety campaign. Phase 3 was rolled out in 2018 and 2019 and consisted of feasibility testing conducted with a small subset of teachers and students in those teachers' classrooms. Participants were surveyed before and after implementation of the SOARS framework. The focus of the feasibility test was on student access and use of the Advocatr app and the accompanying curriculum. During Phase 4 implementation in 2019 and 2020, researchers conducted a pilot test with students, school personnel, and parents from 4 high schools, 2 assigned to the intervention and 2 to the control condition. The focus of the pilot was to test the effectiveness of the SOARS framework.

Demographic information was collected from all informants and includes gender (sex male or female; transgender identification), ethnicity, and race. Additional demographic information about students includes sexual orientation, approximate age (over/under 18 years), primary language, GPA, and grade. Parent demographics also include education level and student's grade, while school personnel (teachers and staff) also provided information regarding education level, school role, job title, years in current position, grades taught, and subjects taught.

Users should note that qualitative data collected during phase 1 focus groups and phase 2 user acceptance tests are not included in version 1 of the ICPSR release. Additionally, in the quantitative datasets, character variables featuring open-ended string responses have been masked by ICPSR. This study will be updated at a later date to include qualitative data files and character variables in the quantitative datasets.

Curated
Restricted

Promoting School Safety: A Comprehensive Emotional and Behavioral Health Model, Baltimore, Maryland, 2014-2017 (ICPSR 38192)

Released/updated on: 2024-02-13
Geographic coverage: Baltimore, United States, Maryland
Time period: 2014-01-01--2017-01-01

Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, Developing Knowledge about What Works to Make Schools Safe solicitation, partnered with The National Center for School Mental Health, University of Maryland to address the significant school safety issue of student emotional and behavioral health crises. In 2012, BCPS implemented a five-year strategic plan known as Blueprint 2.0: Our Way Forward.

One of the major goals of the plan states: "Every school and office will be safe and secure, promote individual wellbeing and provide positive, respectful and caring environments for teaching, learning and working." The plan included key actions which call for "equitable access to counseling, social work, and psychological and other support services" as well as more "internal and external partnerships to improve delivery of mental health and other supportive services."

This study employed a randomized controlled design to evaluate the impact of the emotional and behavioral health crisis response and prevention (EBH-CRP) model on school safety, emotional and behavioral health outcomes, and stakeholder knowledge and preparedness to address emotional and behavioral health concerns across the continuum. A cost-benefit analysis assessed the net benefits of the EBH-CRP intervention.

Curated

Rainier Beach Campus Safety Continuum: A Comprehensive Place-based Approach, Seattle, Washington, 2016-2019 (ICPSR 38805)

Released/updated on: 2026-02-11
Geographic coverage: Seattle, United States, Washington
Time period: 2016-01-01--2019-01-01

The Rainier Beach Campus Safety Continuum (RBCSC), funded by the National Institute of Justice's FY 2016 Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, was a community-led, place-based, evidence-informed approach to addressing school and community safety and reducing racial disparity in school discipline and police contact in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The initiative built upon two existing local initiatives, Rainier Beach: A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth, a community-led place-based approach to addressing youth crime and victimization at hot spots, and Rainier Beach: Beautiful!, an application of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) that extends from the schools into community facilities and businesses.

The goal of the project was to examine whether PBIS can be successfully combined with school-based restorative justice (RJ) to increase student support and reduce racial disparity and, furthermore, whether this integrated PBIS-RJ program could also be extended into wider community and place-based approaches to change social norms and improve overall rates of youth crime and community safety.

The overall project ran from 2017 to 2022. The evaluation examines the effects of the program on crime, academic performance and school discipline, student perceptions of school climate, and community perceptions of neighborhood safety in Rainier Beach, several comparison schools, and neighborhoods. Behavioral variables from the police offense reports and police calls for service included offense details and classifications. Demographic variables from the community survey, school climate data, and school administrative data included gender and race/ethnicity.

Curated

Research on Lowering Violence in Schools and Communities (ReSOLV) in California, 2014-2022 (ICPSR 39028)

Released/updated on: 2025-07-28
Geographic coverage: United States, California
Time period: 2014-01-01--2022-01-01
ReSOLV is a longitudinal mixed methods study examining the school and community contexts that contribute to the root causes and prevention of violence in urban (Hanford), large county (Los Angeles), and rural (Mendota) study sites in California. Three data files are contained for this project, one for each study site. Each file contains aggregate data at the school and community level. The data include variables about school climate; community, school, and individual readiness to adopt comprehensive school safety approaches at the school level; student and school performance measures of chronic absenteeism, test score proficiency, graduation, suspension, and expulsion; crime data from the Uniform Crime Reports; and data from the US Census to create an index of concentrated disadvantage.
Curated
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Shelby County School District Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, Tennessee, 2017-2020 (ICPSR 39092)

Released/updated on: 2025-07-10
Geographic coverage: United States, Tennessee, Memphis
Time period: 2017-01-01--2020-01-01

This study used a school-randomized design to evaluate the implementation, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of two school safety strategies in Shelby County Middle Schools (SCMS). The school safety strategies were evaluated in terms of cost, cost-effectiveness, reduction in student violence and misbehavior, and the minimization of the severity of negative outcomes. Schools were randomly assigned into three groups. One group received Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) representing the treatment as usual (TAU) control group. The second group received student-focused school safety (SFSS) interventions. The third group received comprehensive school safety (CHSS) strategies.

Curated

Space-time Study of Youth and School Violence - STARS for Schools, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2018-2020 (ICPSR 38014)

Released/updated on: 2025-08-14
Geographic coverage: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Time period: 2018-02-01--2020-04-01

School violence, including violence en route to and from school, can make students afraid to go to school and frequently results in serious injury. These assaults occur in a context where the landscape that students navigate each day often includes bullying, substance use, and weapon carrying. Understanding the locations and times when students are vulnerable to assault as they proceed through their school-day routine could identify opportunities for more targeted, evidence-based prevention strategies.

The research team employed a mixed-methods, case-time-control design with GIS-assisted activity path mapping to understand risk factors and protective factors for school assault in the United States. Children aged 12-18 years requiring treatment at the emergency department of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) for an assault-related injury, or who attended Philadelphia schools serving as recruitment sites during the study period, were recruited for the study (n=63). Participants were interviewed using a survey questionnaire and GIS technology to recreate details of the path of their activities, indoors during school and outdoors before and after, from the time they awoke in the morning up until the time they were assaulted. In addition, participants were asked to describe their activities sequentially during that period, including companions and weapon carrying, and site-line features of each location (prospect, refuge, and escape). To include individual- and environmental-level context, participants' paths were appended with data characterizing streets, buildings, neighborhood populations, and the weather that day.

This collection contains data from the quantitative survey measures (DS1) and qualitative interview transcripts (DS2) from the path mapping section of the interview. While GIS data were collected, they were not deposited to ICPSR. Qualitative data will be released at a future date.

Curated
Simple Crosstabs

Student and Staff Comprehension of Emergency Operations Plans, United States, 2018-2021 (ICPSR 38431)

Released/updated on: 2024-04-29
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2018-01-01--2021-01-01

In this study, the research team investigated emergency operations plans (EOPs) content and comprehension in a purposive sample of 10 U.S. schools using a phased, mixed-methods study design. The four primary goals of the study were to:

  1. Gain access to EOPs for 10 schools and examine their appearance, layout, and content, and empirically document the comprehensiveness of EOP materials according to federal guidelines;
  2. Assess access to emergency planning efforts and perceptions of emergency preparedness, including to what extent different types of staff members have read and received training on their school's EOP, serve on emergency planning or school crisis response teams, and believe that their school has prepared them for a violent event (e.g., an armed intruder incident);
  3. Assess staff and student comprehension of emergency concepts and protocols and identify areas of high and low comprehension and respondent- and school-level correlates of comprehension; and
  4. Understand from the perspectives of staff, students, district representatives, local law enforcement officials, and other key stakeholders how EOPs and school emergency preparedness more broadly could be improved and what are the most pervasive challenges and vulnerabilities in school emergency preparedness efforts.

The study was conducted in four phases. In Phase 1, the team recruited 10 schools and gained privileged access to their EOPs. A comprehensive rubric was developed based largely on guidance put forth in 2013 by six federal agencies, including the United States Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Each EOP was systematically reviewed using this rubric; school-specific and aggregated analyses were conducted to identify common strengths and limitations of the plans. In Phase 2, leveraging insights gained from school-specific analyses of EOPs, the team developed and administered comprehension surveys for staff and students to evaluate the extent to which each school community was knowledgeable of the concepts, protocols, and other details described in their plans. Following survey data collection, the team conducted extensive analyses to identify areas with high and low levels of comprehension and uncover statistical associations between comprehension and respondent characteristics (e.g., staff type, years employed at the school, perceptions of preparedness).

In Phase 3, for a subset of schools, the team conducted site visits and group interviews with students and different types of staff regarding their perceptions of their school's EOP, their school's vulnerability to extreme violence, and how emergency planning and preparedness could be improved. Finally, in Phase 4, the team analyzed and synthesized the results from each data collection activity to draw conclusions about EOP development and emergency preparedness and develop actionable recommendations for enhancing safety efforts in K-12 educational settings.

Qualitative data (interviews, focus groups, drill observations) are not currently available for this collection.

Curated

Student Threat Assessment as a Safe and Supportive Prevention Strategy, Virginia, 2013-2019 (ICPSR 37658)

Released/updated on: 2023-07-27
Geographic coverage: United States, Virginia
Time period: 2013-01-01--2019-01-01

Student threat assessment is intended to maintain school safety by resolving student conflicts or problems before they escalate into violence, with the secondary benefit of reducing reliance on safety practices that have deleterious consequences (e.g., zero-tolerance discipline). In 2013, Virginia legislation mandated the establishment of threat assessment teams in all K-12 public schools by July 1, 2014. The major goals of the project were to:

  1. determine how student threat assessment is implemented in statewide practice in Virginia schools;
  2. determine what student and school outcomes are associated with student threat assessment; and
  3. determine whether training/technical assistance can improve student threat assessment.

To address Goal 1, the research team collected data across five years from the annual school safety audit survey that included information on how often threat assessments occur, characteristics of the threat cases, such as student demographics and how the threats were assessed, and the outcomes of the threat. The team also collected data on threat assessment training needs. To address Goal 2, the team correlated threat assessment data collected under Goal 1 with data on student and school outcomes obtained from the annual secondary school climate survey and statewide disciplinary records for school suspensions. To address Goal 3, the team developed, tested, and updated four separate online educational programs tailored to students, parents, staff, and threat assessment teams. These online programs have been implemented by schools in Virginia, 28 other states, and Canada.

This collection contains school safety audit data from 2013 to 2018 and all-time data for the online educational program assessments through 2019. Case-level data, high-risk case level data, and school climate data are available for limited years. Qualitative data on training needs will be made available in a future update.

Curated

Trauma-Informed Approaches to Improve School Safety, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016-2020 (ICPSR 38505)

Released/updated on: 2025-07-28
Geographic coverage: United States, Louisiana, New Orleans
Time period: 2016-01-01--2020-01-01
The current project examined the effectiveness of a multi-component intervention for the installation of trauma-informed approaches in schools. The intervention was set within the installation stage of program implementation and focused on developing and evaluating tools, trainings, and systems of support necessary to build individual and organizational competencies and support infrastructure in K-8 schools to integrate trauma-informed approaches into their multitiered systems of student support. Specific installation strategies included foundational professional development in trauma-informed care, teacher skill-development and on-site coaching in the use of trauma-informed approaches, and technical assistance to school leaderships teams to support organizational change.
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