Applying Restorative Practices in New York City High Schools: Perceived Impact and Mixed Findings, New York, 2017-2019 (ICPSR 38200)
Recognizing the potentially deleterious consequences of criminalizing school discipline, schools are increasingly turning to alternative methods for holding students accountable for misbehavior. Restorative justice (RJ) practices--which seek to hold students who cause harm accountable without removing them from their learning environment--ostensibly represent an antidote to traditional discipline. However, RJ practices have been the subject of limited high quality scientific inquiry. This study aims to fill this gap through the implementation and evaluation of a restorative program in a school district (District 18) that struggles with the highest suspension rates in New York City.
Related literature presents inconclusive results regarding the effectiveness of restorative justice (RJ) in schools (Anyon et al. 2016; Augustine et al. 2018; Gonz?lez 2015; Gonz?lez et al. 2019). There is little uniformity in restorative justice implementation, although some key components of successful implementation (e.g., staff buy-in, resources) have been identified. Because no two schools are likely to implement restorative practices identically, evaluating them with scientific rigor--typically requiring large samples--has been inherently challenging. As such, randomized controlled trials of restorative justice in schools were virtually non-existent in 2015 (at the time the current study was proposed), and most existing research relied on qualitative, quasi-experimental or pre-post designs. The push for quantitative rigor resulted in the present study, a mixed method randomized controlled trial, along with other recently published or ongoing rigorous evaluations.
The restorative justice program in question aimed to improve school climate, strengthen relationships schoolwide, prevent and intervene in conflict, reduce incidents and suspensions, and enhance any existing restorative practices already in place. Restorative justice has the potential to reduce dependency on punitive measures (e.g., suspension) when an incident occurs at school. Additionally, given the priority placed on building community and providing mental health support, restorative justice may also reduce such incidents altogether, while creating a positive school climate. As such, the primary quantitative outcomes in this study were incident rates, suspension rates, and school climate. This study was a randomized control trial that included a treatment group (enrolled in RJ program), comparison group (no RJ program enrollment), and control groups (general restorative justice practices). The research team hypothesized the following:
- Hypothesis 1: Students in the treatment group would have fewer incidents and suspensions than the control group.
- Hypothesis 2: Students in the treatment group would have fewer incidents and suspensions than the comparison group.
- Hypothesis 3: Students in all of District 18 would have fewer incidents and suspensions than the comparison group.
- Hypothesis 4: The treatment group would have a more positive school climate than the control group.
Assessing the Role of School Discipline In Disproportionate Minority Contact With the Juvenile Justice System, Texas, 1999-2008 (ICPSR 37186)
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
This project utilized data originally collected for the project Breaking Schools' Rules (Fabelo et al., 2011), a joint project of the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A and M University and the Council of State Governments Justice Center on which the Principal Investigator, Miner Marchbanks was a lead data analyst and co-author. Research was conducted at the Education Research Centers of the University of Texas, Austin, and Texas A and M University utilizing individual-level data from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS), a data system of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and CASEWORKER, a data management system of the Texas Probation Commission (now the Texas Juvenile Justice Department). The link between these records was conducted by TEA and is described in greater detail in Fabelo et al.
Through secondary analyses of these data, researchers attempted to measure the institutional and individual mechanisms that disproportionately pull and push students of color into the "school-to-prison pipeline." The project explores the predictors of school discipline contact and the resulting consequences of encountering this discipline. The project then moves to an examination of the determinants of progressing through the various decision points in a juvenile justice case. Additionally, the project explores the relationship between school strictness and various educational and juvenile justice outcomes. The "school-to-prison pipeline" (Wald and Losen, 2003) describes an "increasingly punitive and isolating" path through the education system for African American and other at-risk students.
The study collection includes 1 Stata (.do) syntax file (master_final.do) that was used by the researcher(s) in secondary analyses.
A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of the Safe Public Spaces in Schools Program, New York City, 2016-2018 (ICPSR 37476)
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.
Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, St. Louis County, Missouri, 2016-2019 (ICPSR 37929)
This multi-year study investigated the causes and consequences of school victimization (e.g., property theft, minor assault, bullying, cyberbullying) as well as factors contributing to safe learning environments (e.g., school disciplinary practices, students' willingness to report dangerous behavior, availability and utilization of victim services). The project includes three annual surveys of students initially enrolled in 12 middle schools in St. Louis County; a summer component consisting of semi-structured interviews with a subsample of 197 students, including in-depth interviews with 37 students the following summer; and two surveys of school personnel. There are three areas of interest that guide this project and are associated with better understanding of the root causes and consequences (i.e., correlates) of school violence:
(1) Identification of patterns of school violence: the principal investigators surveyed two student cohorts over three years as they transitioned from middle to high school (7th/8th grades to 9th/10th grades)
(2) Identification of correlates of school violence relying on multiple sources, including: the individual (e.g., gang membership, attitudes toward violence), the school and school climate (e.g., willingness to report, awareness and utilization of victim services, views on the procedural justice of school disciplinary practices, gang presence at the school) and the situation (e.g., where, when, and with whom violence occurs)
(3) A specific examination of bullying and cyberbullying as unique forms of school violence with regard to their correlates stemming from each source identified above
The Comprehensive School Safety Initiative: Study of Police in Schools, California and Florida, 2011-2019 (ICPSR 37591)
Although the placement of school resource officers (SROs) in schools is widespread, little is known about its effectiveness in preventing school crime or the extent to which placement may harm schools and students (e.g., by facilitating the formal processing of minor offenses). The Study of Police in Schools sought to strengthen the evidence base on the effects of SROs on schools and students. Specifically, this study addressed two research questions: (1) What are the effects of SROs on school disciplinary offenses and disciplinary actions? and (2) Do the effects of SROs vary by implementation, school, and student characteristics?
The study focused on public secondary schools that increased SRO staffing through the 2013 and 2014 Department of Justice's Community Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program (CHP) and on matched comparison schools that neither received SROs funded by CHP grants nor increased SRO staffing at the same time as treatment schools. Using longitudinal analyses of monthly school-level administrative data, the study compared the treatment and comparison schools on disciplinary incidents/offenses and actions. In addition, the study analyzed data from web surveys of school administrators and SROs at the sample schools, and from interviews with law enforcement officials at the agencies that placed the SROs in the schools. To assess the extent to which the presence of SROs affects the measurement of school crime, research staff also collected and analyzed qualitative information from interviews with school administrators in select treatment schools.
To conduct the study, the following data sources were collected or obtained:
- Linking and SRO program information data files (1 file for CA, 1 file for FL)
- California Department of Education administrative data files (5 files)
- SRO web survey data files (1 file for CA, 1 file for FL)
- School administrator web survey data files (1 file for CA, 1 file for FL)
- Law enforcement agency interview data files (1 file for CA, 1 file for FL)
- Moderator data file (1 file for CA)
- School administrator interview data file (1 file for CA)
Developing Knowledge About What Works to Make Schools Safe: Implementation and Evaluation of Tools for Life to Improve School Climate and Safety in Jackson Public School District, Mississippi, 2016-2018 (ICPSR 37600)
Tools for Life: Relationship-Building Solutions (TFL) is a program designed to improve school climate and safety through the proactive development of elementary and middle school students' interpersonal skills (relationship-building and communication) and intrapersonal skills (self-regulation and resiliency). In the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years, the Jackson (Mississippi) Public School District (JPSD) implemented TFL in grades 1 through 8. RAND researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether TFL, integrated into existing school practices, positively affected school climate and safety in the district.
This project described the implementation of TFL in JPSD, calculated its costs, and evaluated the program's effectiveness. TFL was designed to improve whole-school change in relationships among staff and students, but the project researchers found that implementation of TFL in JPSD schools was generally shallow, and the program was rarely, if at all, implemented across a whole school as it was designed. TFL had little impact: After one year of implementation, there were no practically or statistically significant differences between schools that implemented TFL and those that did not in measures of students' social and emotional, school climate, behavioral, or achievement outcomes. In addition to the uneven implementation of the program, methodological limitations of the study and contextual factors in JPSD may have contributed to these finding.
Discipline in Context: Suspension, Climate, and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in the School District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2016-2017 (ICPSR 37036)
Effective School Staff Interactions with Students and Police: A Training Model (ESSI), Connecticut, 2013-2018 (ICPSR 37486)
This project assesses the effectiveness of a one-day, 5-hour workshop (ESSI training, hereafter) designed for joint instruction by school staff and police to all school staff. The goal was to promote positive outcomes and reduce police involvement in interactions between staff and students exhibiting inappropriate behavior through increased staff awareness of youth behavior, the functions of the juvenile justice system, and disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in disciplinary action.
1,024 school staff participated in 51 ESSI training sessions throughought the 2015/16 academic year, which also serves as the training year in the longitudinal data. Schools which did not participate in the training served as controls for the participating school. Data were drawn from a panel of students enrolled in either a training or control school, with ten schools in each group. Data on this panel of students was collected for a five-year period, from the 2013/14 through the 2017/18 academic years.
School-level data serves as the unit of analysis, as the study's main goal was to test the effects of training on school-wide outcomes. The estimated coefficient indicates small attendance reductions during the post-training phase for the training group. This indicates that most of the differences between the training and control group were statistically insignificant and that there was no pattern of statistically significant positive effects across the training schools. The second set of analyses, performed on student-level data, indicates that male and minority students are more likely to be involved in disciplinary incidents and to receive suspensions or expulsions as a consequence of their behaviors than White and female students.
Enhancing School Resource Officers Effectiveness through Online Professional and Job Embedded Coaching, Miami-Dade County, Florida, 2018-2020 (ICPSR 37946)
Evaluation of a Principal Training Program to Promote Safe and Civil Schools, Oklahoma, 2017-2022 (ICPSR 39076)
Evaluation of the Bully-Proofing Your School Program in Colorado, 2001-2006 (ICPSR 21840)
Evaluation of the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program: Long-Term Outcomes and Sustained Impact, 2013-2020 (ICPSR 38271)
Schools are a primary referral source to the juvenile justice system, helping create and perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline. Seeking to dismantle this pipeline in the city, the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) partnered with the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) to develop and operate the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program. Implemented in May 2014, all first-time offending youth aged 10 years or older who commit specified school-based minor misdemeanor or summary offenses on school property are diverted from arrest, referred to a Department of Human Services (DHS) social worker and community-based services, and face no consequences even if they decline services.
This evaluation examined long-term outcomes for diverted youth and sustained program impacts over five years. From a full sample of 3,616 diverted and arrested students, this study used a quasi-experimental design to compare data for diverted youth (quasi-experimental group; n = 1,281) and similar youth arrested in schools in the year before the program's implementation (quasi-control group; n = 531). PPD school police officers completed surveys regarding their knowledge and perceptions of the Diversion Program immediately before and after a training session held prior to its implementation, then on an annual basis through year five. A cost-benefit analysis of the program was conducted in partnership with the Vera Institute of Justice.
The data have been organized by analysis. Short-term analysis refers to two-year recidivism analyses and one-year child welfare involvement, and covers the full and quasi-control arrested samples and youth diverted in school years 2014-2015, 2015-2016, and 2016-2017. Long-term analyses include four-year graduation/drop-out, five-year recidivism analyses, and five-year child welfare involvement, and covers the full and quasi-control arrested samples and youth diverted in school year 2014-2015.
Short- and long-term recidivism outcome data (DS1 and DS2), police survey data before and after program implementation (DS3), and cost-benefit analysis tables (DS9) are included in this collection. Please refer to the User Guide for details on how to acquire additional data from SDP and DHS and steps to create the full analytic files for academic-related and child welfare involvement outcomes.
The Impact of Exclusion in School: A Comprehensive Study in New York City, 2010-2015 (ICPSR 37249)
This study uses quantitative and qualitative research to fill a gap in the scholarly literature on "what works" in school discipline, climate, and safety and has important implications for educators and justice policymakers nationwide. The quantitative analysis utilized data from 2010-2015 of middle and high school students (N=87,471 students nested within 804 schools and 74 neighborhoods) in New York City. Researchers applied hierarchical modeling methods to analyze effects of neighborhood, school, and student characteristics on: 1) future school disciplinary outcomes; 2) future arrest; and 3) grade advancement. Demographic variables for individual participants include race, gender, and if they are an English language learner.
Demographic variables for neighborhoods include race, median income, crime rates, and education levels.
Improvement of School Climate Assessment in Virginia Secondary Schools, 2013-2020 (ICPSR 38022)
This study sought to advance understanding of how school climate is a critical factor in school safety and violence prevention. Middle school and high school students and staff were surveyed over the span of eight years from 2013-2020. Middle school students and staff were surveyed during odd years (4 waves of data collection), and high school students and staff were surveyed the other even years (again four years of data collection). All four years of data per group were combined into a single dataset. A final file was created pooling all eight years of data collection averaging student and staff responses by school.
Both the student and teacher/staff surveys covered two domains: school climate and safety conditions. The school climate domain included perceptions of the school's disciplinary practices, student support efforts, and degree of student engagement in school. The safety conditions domain covered reports of bullying, teasing, sexual harassment, and other forms of peer aggression, including threats of violence, physical assault, dating aggression, and gang activity.
Previous research conducted by the Principal Investigators showed that an authoritative school climate characterized by high structure (strict but fair discipline and high academic expectations) and high support (positive teacher-student relationships) is associated with many positive outcomes. Students who attend schools with an authoritative school climate demonstrated more engagement in school, have higher school attendance and academic achievement, and are more likely to graduate. Students who experience a structured and supportive school climate may be more willing to follow school rules, respond to their teachers, and treat one another in a respectful manner. This study continues that prior work.
Improving School Safety in the District of Columbia: Evaluating the Safe School Certification Program, 2016-2020 (ICPSR 37892)
A Multiple Perspectives Analysis of the Influences on the School to Prison Pipeline in Virginia, 2013-2015 (ICPSR 37300)
National Youth Gang Intervention and Suppression Survey, 1980-1987 (ICPSR 9792)
The Nature and Extent of Gang Involvement in Sex Trafficking in San Diego County, California, 2003-2015 (ICPSR 36220)
This three-year study used quantitative and qualitative data collected between 2003 and 2015 to assess the scale and nature of gang involvement in sex trafficking in San Diego, California. At the time of study, San Diego was ranked as one of the United States' highest areas of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). This mixed-methods study has generated the following datasets:
- Survivor Services Dataset (DS1 and DS2): A composite of intake surveys conducted by the prostitution diversion program Freedom From Exploitation (FFE) (DS1) and eight organizations that provide direct services to sex trafficking victims/survivors (DS2)
- Law Enforcement Reporting Dataset (DS3 and DS4): Booking records provided by the San Diego Sheriff's Department (DS3), and arrest records provided by the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) (DS4)
- Schools Dataset (DS5): Summaries of focus group interviews of staff employed by San Diego County school districts (due to disclosure concerns, full transcripts were not released)
- Facilitator Interview Dataset (DS6): Summaries of interviews of incarcerated and community members with knowledge of trafficking (due to disclosure concerns, full transcripts were not released)
- Social Media Analytics Dataset (DS7): Search criteria and schema of relevant data fields for social network analysis conducted using Twitter data (due to disclosure concerns and dataset size, the social media data themselves were not released)
Survivor services, law enforcement, schools, and facilitator interview data were all collected and analyzed as part of the main NIJ award. The social media analytics data were collected and analyzed under a subaward by the SecDev Cyber Group.
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in Challenging Contexts: Evaluating a Replicable Implementation Approach in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2018-2021 (ICPSR 38572)
This study aimed to validate an approach to implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a school-climate improvement program, in a partnering school district in an attempt to address pressing issues impacting students' success. The study was a collaboration between the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), the partnering school district, and several additional partners, who collaboratively designed and supported the PBIS implementation approach funded from National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and supplemental funds from the participating school district.
The impacts of trauma training for school officers were assessed via an PBIS of all eligible district K-8 schools, including schools that did and did not use school-wide PBIS. The random controlled trial (RCT) used a blocked design to assign schools to treatment and control conditions within PBIS status (i.e., PBIS school, non-PBIS school).
Impacts of the implementation model were assessed via a cluster randomized experiment. To select schools to receive the expanded supports being provided through this project, the research team collaborated with the partnering school district's school climate administrators and project partners who had been supporting PBIS implementation in the district for several years prior to the start of the project. Criteria were established to determine eligibility for the implementation model, including that eligible schools must have: 1) strong PBIS implementation at Tier 1, 2) attempted implementing some form of Tier 2 supports, and 3) leadership buy-in. Applying these criteria, nine potential schools were identified as eligible. From this list, four schools were randomly selected to receive the implementation model and the remaining five schools served as Comparison schools and conducted business-as-usual PBIS.
Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN): School and Day Care Screen, Wave 2, 1997-2000 (ICPSR 13653)
Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN): School Screen, Wave 3, 2000-2002 (ICPSR 13739)
Project SOARS: Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety, Illinois and Oregon, 2016-2020 (ICPSR 37896)
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.
Promoting School Safety: A Comprehensive Emotional and Behavioral Health Model, Baltimore, Maryland, 2014-2017 (ICPSR 38192)
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.
Pursuing Equitable Restorative Communities, Pittsburgh, PA, 2015-2017 (ICPSR 37387)
A Randomized Controlled Trial Of A Comprehensive, Research-Based Framework for Implementing School-Based Law Enforcement Programs, Texas, 2017-2020 (ICPSR 38263)
The purpose of this study was to evaluate a comprehensive, research-based framework of recommended practices for integrating police into the educational environment. This research tested use of a multi-faceted school-based law enforcement (SBLE) framework to determine how the framework contributes to multiple outcomes. The objectives for this study were to: (1) implement a randomized controlled trial to test a comprehensive framework for SBLE involving 25 middle and high schools; (2) assess the impacts of this framework on student victimization and delinquency, use of exclusionary discipline practices (e.g., suspension, expulsion), school climate measures, and student-officer interactions; and (3) disseminate tangible findings that can immediately be translated into practice and further research in schools nationwide.
Role of Law Enforcement in Public School Safety in the United States, 2002 (ICPSR 4457)
School Crime Operations Package (School COP Software) (ICPSR 23543)
The School Crime Operations Package (School COP) is a software application developed by Abt Associates Inc. with funding from the National Institute of Justice. School COP is a free software package that persons responsible for school safety can use to enter, analyze, and map criminal incidents and school rule violations that occur in and around K-12 schools. School COP organizes information according to the data model that the United States Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics' Crime, Violence, and Discipline Reporting Task Force recommends. The School COP database includes data related to the incident (e.g., date, time, type, location) and to persons involved in the incident (e.g., name, grade, action taken). In other words, School COP is an incident-based system, rather than a student-based system. School COP offers a variety of techniques for analyzing school incidents, including tabular reports, bar graphs, pie charts, and maps. School COP can be installed on any Windows (95 or later) PC. It requires no other software to run, and is usable without formal training.
The origin of this project is an award to Abt Associates Inc. that was funded under the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ) June 1999 "Safe Schools Technology" solicitation, which requested proposals for innovative approaches to using technology to enhance the safety of our nation's elementary and secondary schools. School COP was initially released on CD-ROM in January 2001, and made available at the School COP Web site in June 2001. This Windows version of School COP was generally designed for individuals, for a single school, or for small offices within a school district. Abt Associates Inc. was subsequently awarded another grant in 2001 to enhance the School Crime Operations Package (School COP) and to conduct an evaluation of this software, which is used to enter and analyze incidents that occur on school campuses.
Two types of enhancements were made. First, an enhanced Windows version of School COP was developed that could run on a local- or wide-area network, thus allowing multiple users within a single school or across multiple schools to share a common School COP database. The enhanced Windows version also included two utilities: a Merge application (which enables a district-level School COP database to be constructed by merging several individual databases) and a Viewer application (which enables users to view -- but not add, edit, or delete -- incident information). Second, Web School COP was developed to meet the diverse information needs of persons charged with maintaining safe schools in large school districts, including persons at the school-level (e.g., principals, assistant principals, security officers, and school resource officers), the district-level (e.g., district-level administrators and security staff), as well as possibly parent organizations and state-level administrators. Web School COP was designed to run on either an Intranet (e.g., the school district's private Internet) or a secure third-party Web server, and was built to run on the current Microsoft Web platform.
The evaluation of School COP entailed case studies of six sites to address three main issues: (1) what decision process do sites go through when deciding whether to use School COP, (2) once the site decides to use School COP, what implementation obstacles exist, including those related to installation, customization, and training, and (3) what benefits do sites realize from using School COP.
School Culture, Climate, and Violence: Safety in Middle Schools of the Philadelphia Public School System, 1990-1994 (ICPSR 2026)
School Emergency Preparedness Study, United States, 2018 (ICPSR 37222)
The School Emergency Preparedness Study, United States, 2018, was conducted to better understand the state of knowledge concerning violent emergency preparedness in schools and the interrelationship between federal, state, district, and school perspectives on safety planning. RTI International conducted a two-year study in four phases. In Phase I, the project team reviewed federal and state guidelines and mandates for school safety planning. In Phases II and III, a survey was administered to district safety and security directors and superintendents, then the team reviewed guidelines and mandates for a subset of districts. In Phase IV, interviews were conducted with administrators from 37 schools and results were analyzed from all four phases.
Survey of Parents and Children, 1990: [United States] (ICPSR 9595)
Systematic Review of School-Based Programs to Reduce Bullying and Victimization, 1983-2009 (ICPSR 31703)
Testing Integrative Models to Improve School Safety: Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, South Carolina, 2015-2018 (ICPSR 37397)
Many schools have implemented programs to address bullying, such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), or broader school behavioral issues, such as School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS), but there have been calls to integrate school interventions in order to address the limits of each "stand alone" program. The purpose of this project was to develop an intervention combining OBPP and SWPBIS strategies into one integrated program, evaluate its effectiveness using a randomized controlled trial (RCT), analyze the program's cost effectiveness, and examine the use of school-based mental health services in elementary, middle, and high school settings. Implications for policy and strategy are also discussed.
School-level data were presented including disciplinary incidents, student and teacher attendance, program costs, and the presence of mental health services. Students and teachers within intervention and control conditions were surveyed about their perceptions of bullying, school safety, and school climate. Teachers in intervention schools were asked about program satisfaction, self-efficacy, and fidelity. Students were asked numerous questions pertaining to physical and mental health, bullying perpetration and victimization, and substance abuse. Teachers and students were asked their grade, gender, and race.
Understanding the Impact of School Safety on the High School Transition Experience: From Etiology to Prevention, Flint, Michigan, 2016 (ICPSR 37999)
This is a multi-method study of school violence and victimization during the transition to high school. This study has two major data collection efforts. First, a full population survey of 7th through 10th grade students across 10 Flint Community Schools (fall 2016) -- which serve primarily African American and poor populations -- that will identify patterns of student victimization, including the location and seriousness of violent events, and examine the connections between school and community violence. This will be followed by a three-wave panel qualitative study of 100 students interviewed every 6 months beginning in the spring of their 8th grade year (spring 2017) and continuing through their 9th grade year.
The goal of the interviews will be to further the research from the survey and develop a deeper understanding of how school safety impacts the transition experience, school violence, including how communities conflict impacts school safety, and what youth do to protect themselves from school-related victimization.
Researchers integrated crime incident data from the Flint police department as a source for triangulation of findings. A community workgroup will provide guided translation of findings generated from mixed-methods analyses, and develop an action plan to help students successfully transition to high school. Results and policy implications will be given to practitioner, researcher, and public audiences through written, oral, and web-based forums. De-identified data will be archived at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.