School security is an issue faced by all school districts. Some school districts in the state of Missouri made the decision to arm members of their staff to provide an additional layer of defense. This qualitative study looks at the lived experiences of PK-12 school staff members who carry a concealed weapon for Shield Solutions. The participants…

Schools should be safe places for young people, educators, school staff, and community members, and policies and practices can help create learning environments where kids thrive. Gun violence in U.S. schools has prompted calls for increased school safety measures; however, which policies contribute to safe school environments is often a topic of…

The recent increase in school shootings has brought about an urgency to renew efforts to understand and reduce them. In this article, the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health reviews what is known about school shootings, including data related to incidence and shooter profiles. In addition, we describe responses to shootings, accompanied…

Using data from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), this report presents findings both on crime and violence in U.S. public schools and on the practices and programs schools have used to promote school safety. SSOCS is managed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of…

The 2020 Texas Educators' Needs Assessment Regarding School Safety and Victims Services included responses from educators across the state of Texas regarding school safety. This needs assessment generated data that provided researchers with the unique opportunity to analyze the school safety issues in Texas (Fuller et al, 2020). The purpose of the…

The shooting on Virginia Tech's campus that left 32 dead in 2007 and other incidents since then resulted in active threat preparations at institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States. Little is known about how emergency managers understand campus preparedness and what enhanced learning in the implementation, training, and…