Institutions of higher education and their counseling centers are under intense pressure to prevent student suicide. This article proposes that routinely using threat assessment and management teams in working with suicidal students would add value to existing suicide prevention efforts. The unique features of threat assessment and management…

David Blacker points to a problematic decline in personal freedoms, including student speech rights: "[A]s the 'educational mission' of schools moves ineluctably even further toward warehousing and surveillance--pre-jail--then remaining intra-institutional speech rights will easily be quashed." Critical of the elastic conception of…

With the intention of increasing school safety, across the country, law enforcement officers have been deployed to work on school grounds. After the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) developed a new program called COPS in Schools (CIS) that was a mechanism…

Education is a $600 billion-a-year enterprise, but the investments states make in education will not benefit students unless they are physically and mentally present in the classroom. Too many students are not. In this report, the National Association of State Boards of Education asks policymakers to promote student engagement through a suite of…

Examines the safe schools issue as a social movement and outlines issues groups must address as they work together to make schools safe. Public demand for safe schools is a social-problem movement consistent with conceptualizations of new social movements. (SLD)

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative was designed to encourage collaboration among school districts and local community service providers in the provision of behavioral health prevention and early intervention efforts. These efforts would address the physical safety of students as well as provide mental health, violence prevention, and…

The Higher Education Center's 2002 publication "Preventing Violence and Promoting Safety in Higher Education Settings: Overview of a Comprehensive Approach," outlines a framework for addressing a broad array of violence issues in college and university communities. This document outlines specific considerations in applying this approach to the…

Many principals have recently acquired school resource officers, police officers who are stationed in schools and report to local sheriffs or police chiefs. Working effectively with a resource officer requires that principals and officers understand each other's role and express partnership details in a memorandum of understanding. (MLH)

Treating symptoms of school violence with material resources (for precautionary measures) has merit, but addressing underlying causes warrants a more comprehensive, collaborative approach. A caring community within each school and each classroom is linked to increases in students' social and academic development and decreases in destructive…

Data from campus crime reports and security logs help identify the perpetrators and likely victims of crime on college campuses. The historically black college or university campus is not exempt from physical and verbal acts of violence, and every area of the campus is vulnerable. Although the academy has no duty to protect the community from…

Well-disciplined schools make appropriate school discipline a part of every curriculum, program, and practice. Key organizational variables include staff and community involvement, sensitivity to students' racial and socioeconomic concerns, and effective intervention strategies, such as the anger-management seminars, awareness discussion groups,…

The Florida Successful Schools Project, a collaborative effort of the State Department of Education, school district Chapter 1 programs, and the Technical Assistance Centers in Atlanta, is designed to help the Florida schools that face the greatest challenges in helping students achieve in a safe and orderly environment. This report covers the…