Students across the United States experience high levels of contact with the police. To clarify the causal relationships of this contact with educational outcomes and the mechanisms by which such relationships arise, we estimate the effects of arrest on student engagement with school using daily attendance data. Recently arrested students missed…

Background/Context: Chronic absenteeism has received increased attention from educational leaders and policy makers, in part because of the association between attendance and important student outcomes. Student attendance is influenced by a range of student-, school-, and community-level characteristics, suggesting that a comprehensive and…

As the body of research on school violence grows, so does the understanding of the features, causes, and consequences of student victimization (Chouhy, Madero-Hernande, and Turanovic 2017). Among students who experience victimization, lower academic performance can become an issue particularly for adolescents who avoid or skip school following the…

Students' ability to succeed academically in the school setting depends heavily on factors that students face outside of the school walls. One such contributor is the presence of a safe environment for students to travel to and from school. Unfortunately, for many students in urban and economically depressed environments, the daily commute to and…

As trusted health professionals in the school setting, school nurses are well positioned to identify students who may be victims of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). However, until recently this issue has been clouded by lack of awareness, stigma, and/or denial. Since nationally the average age of entry for girls into the…

Every student absence jeopardizes the ability of students to succeed at school and schools to achieve their mission. School attendance is a constant concern in schools. Average daily attendance rates are a common determiner of school funding, so schools funded on the basis of average daily attendance have less resources to do the job. Students who…

Truancy is well documented as an indicator of high risk for drop-out and failure to graduate, as well as a risk factor for delinquency. This report provides a snapshot of truancy in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) high schools and middle schools in 2010-11. School data on student absenteeism was combined with Census and crime data on…

The purpose of this study was to document and compare rates of reported and perceived crime and violence within schools. With highly publicized acts of school violence prevalent in the minds of the American public, there is a perception that schools are unsafe. Reports of school crime and violence from teachers, administrators, and students differ…

Despite decades of research analyzing fear of crime among adults, little is known about youth fear of crime in general and youth fear of crime in school, specifically. Moreover, among existing studies most emphasize causes of fear, with little discussion of avoidance or the academic consequences of these feelings and behaviors in school. This…

The Virginia Board of Education's "Student Conduct Policy Guidelines" were first developed in 1994 in response to action by the 1993 General Assembly requiring the Virginia Board of Education to establish such guidelines. In 2004, the "Guidelines" underwent a major revision in response to requirements of § 22.1-279.6. of the…

Using the latest international educational database, TIMSS, this study investigates and compares the occurrences of 11 student problem behaviors as reported by middle school principals in ten countries. For each country, the study reveals the relationships of these problem behaviors with teachers' attitudes and parental involvement, and discusses…

Truancy remains a persistent concern, with serious consequences for the individual, family, and society, as truancy is often linked to academic failure, disengagement with school, school dropout, and delinquency. This study analyzed large-scale data covering multiple years of cohorts of delinquent youths born between 1981 and 1988. Truancy…

In 2000, the California State Legislature passed what is now known as the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA). This effort was designed to provide a stable funding source to counties for juvenile programs that have been proven effective in curbing crime among juvenile probationers and young at-risk offenders. The Corrections Standards…

Significant numbers of students are being pushed out of school as a result of "zero tolerance" school discipline policies. While nobody questions the need to keep schools safe, teachers, students, and parents are questioning the methods being used in pursuit of that goal. Zero tolerance policies were initially aimed at making schools safe. The…

This brief summarizes the findings of the larger study, "Just Learning: The Imperative to Transform Juvenile Justice Systems into Effective Educational Systems. A Study of Juvenile Justice Schools in the South and the Nation." With awareness growing that schools are disciplining and suspending minority students at alarming rates, the…