Purpose: While studies of collective leadership tend to focus on administrators and teachers, schools have other staff present that contribute to leadership in ways that affect the students. We focus on school resource officers (SROs), which have become increasingly common in suburban, predominately White schools and elementary schools because,…

Implementing police in schools is a common strategy for ensuring school safety, but it is unknown whether, to what extent, and for whom the presence of police in schools affects student arrest rates. Utilizing nationwide data from the 2013-2014 Civil Rights Data Collection (N = 92,620), this study examines how police presence is related to student…

Following high-profile school shootings, policymakers and educators seek ways to prevent such shootings, but there has been little research on school-level responses in the immediate aftermath of such events. This study examines how school-level security measures and practices changed after the 1999 Columbine shooting using a nationally…

School resource officers (SROs) are common in schools, yet consequences of their presence are poorly understood. This study leveraged mixed-methods data from student surveys and group interviews across 25 schools to examine how the frequency of interactions and trust/comfort between students and SROs relate to disciplinary outcomes and feelings of…

Social control and procedural justice theories indicate that informal social control reduces problem behaviors. However, many schools have implemented formal control mechanisms such as school security measures. This study examines the association between school security measures (security personnel, metal detectors, and surveillance cameras) and…

Teacher victimization is a relatively understudied phenomenon that may contribute to teacher turnover. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between teacher reports of victimization and teachers leaving their school and the profession. Using nationally representative data (n = 104,840) from the Schools and Staffing Survey, we…

Adopting school resource officers (SROs) is a popular response to school shootings. Using the advocacy coalition and multiple streams frameworks, we explore how school districts in one county formed a coalition with the Sheriff's Department, adopting SROs in elementary schools following the Sandy Hook shooting. We describe how this coalition was…

School security measures have become commonplace in recent years. Still, little quantitative research has examined how this trend shapes students' perceptions of school. This study examines how students' exposure to school security relates to their sense of school connectedness, with particular attention to the difference between white and…

School safety is a priority for school administrators and policy makers as they seek strategies to provide an environment conducive to learning. Beyond preventing crime, schools must contend with social disturbances that may not rise to the level of criminal activity, but can negatively affect students, teachers, and the school environment. One…

High profile school shootings have served as pivotal events for developing policies to promote student safety. Although previous studies indicate that exposure to violence is associated with feeling unsafe at school and poorer academic and psychosocial outcomes, research on the relationship between widely publicized acts of school violence and…

Homophobic victimization is a pervasive problem in U.S. schools that leads to negative outcomes for students. Those who experience homophobic victimization are at greater risk for avoiding particular spaces in school because they feel unsafe or afraid. Visible school security measures (e.g., security guards, metal detectors, and cameras) offer…

Homophobic victimization is a pervasive problem in U.S. schools that leads to negative outcomes for students. Those who experience homophobic victimization are at greater risk for avoiding particular spaces in school because they feel unsafe or afraid. Visible school security measures (e.g., security guards, metal detectors, and cameras) offer…

Many U.S. schools use visible security measures (security cameras, metal detectors, security personnel) in an effort to keep schools safe and promote adolescents' academic success. This study examined how different patterns of visible security utilization were associated with U.S. middle and high school students' academic performance, attendance,…