This dissertation discussed the impact of the North Carolina Tort Claims Act and the history of governmental immunity that has protected school districts and school employees in North Carolina. The research question addressed was: how have North Carolina state courts interpreted the North Carolina Tort Claims Act in litigation against North…

As state legislatures increasingly turn their gaze to education and school policy, one intervention that is particularly concerning is the proposal to arm civilian school personnel. Under the guise of school safety, these policies suggest that allowing teachers, who often have little if any training, to carry weapons on school grounds may deter a…

We assessed college students' perceptions of safety related to concealed carry of firearms on a university campus. Explicit assessments were collected before passage, before implementation, and after implementation of the law; implicit assessments were collected before and after implementation. For comparison, we included college students from a…

Limited research has been conducted on the state-level factors that may be associated with intentional school shootings. We obtained school shooting data from the "Washington Post" that identified any act of intentional interpersonal gunfire in a K-12 school over the course of two decades. We also compiled new data on active school…

An ultimate goal of American universities is to provide a safe and secure environment for all who attend and operate there, but what safety looks and feels like to the individual can vary to a great degree. There are many factors that campus safety departments consider when designing their campus safety policies and regulations. One way…

An array of federal, state, and local laws and policies come into play when situations arise that could compromise student safety. These laws and district policies combine to form an intricate and sometimes inconsistent patchwork of protocols that schools must follow. Robert Kim discusses the interplay between federal, state, and local laws…

The doctrine of sovereign immunity in Florida has evolved over time as the common law and statutory environment within the state has changed. Public schools and public-school employees enjoy some level of immunity protection under both common law and statutory law. Nonetheless, Florida law creates a duty to provide a safe environment for students…

Restraint and seclusion (R/S) are practices employed by schools to address severe student behavior. Although the use of R/S has been shown to have harmful impact for students, staff, and schools, there is no federal law that addresses its use in schools. A lack of a universal approach leaves each state to determine its own legislation and policy.…

This 50-state comparison assesses the K-12 school safety policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The information presented in this interactive resource gives an overview of relevant laws in each state and does not reflect how these laws may interact with other state or federal policies. The interactive resource does not include…

In 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) enacted a new law called Act 44, which provided new form of funding for school safety in school districts across the State of Pennsylvania. The study focused on how school superintendents and high school principals prioritized each category in Pennsylvania Act 44 from highest to the lowest…

This study examined differences in reported campus criminality on selected community college campuses in the years between 2005 and 2016 representing the years preceding and succeeding the implementation of Mississippi's 2011 concealed carry legislation. Each campus included in this study is a public-funded community college in Mississippi. Using…

The 2017 Georgia House Bill 280 states that, with limited exceptions, a properly licensed handgun owner can Concealed Carry on Georgia's public college and university campuses. Since its inception and because of the recent history of mass shootings, much controversy surrounds this law. The infancy of and controversy behind this law calls for…

Using the state of Georgia as a backdrop, this paper highlights the current state of the GFSA (Gun-Free Schools Act) in the United States of America, initially enacted in 1994, 30 years later. The progress of school-based ZTPs (Zero Tolerance Policies) in practice shows that progress remains slow a quarter of a century later. In response, this…

Annually, the Department of Education (Department) collects data from school districts across the state on disciplinary infractions and their consequences. These data are analyzed in a state-level report developed by the Department for the Governor and the Legislature to fulfill the requirements of the "Public School Safety Law N.J.S.A."…

As campus carry policies are implemented at colleges and universities across the country, the concern for the safety of students, faculty members, and campus community members has heightened. In the state of Texas, broad sweeping campus carry policies were recently enacted by Texas State Legislature that allows individuals to conceal carry…