Over the past 25 years school violence in the form of active shootings has steadily increased in frequency and devastation. Schools across the United States have leveraged a multitude of security mechanisms and philosophies to stop active shooter violence. The 2020 COVID pandemic further ignited violence within the schools and a rise in teacher…

Context: School-based student protests have received little scholarly attention, yet they have the potential to impact the school community, students' civic development, and larger social movements. Principals are key actors in responding to school-based student protests. As school leaders, principals' actions affect the outcome of student…

The issue of school safety is of paramount concern but what is lacking is clarity on the best course of action aimed at bolstering safety in public schools. We sought to answer the following research questions: What topics are addressed in school board policies related to arming employees? What outlying policy topics are addressed in school board…

Between 1999 and 2018, 210 shootings have occurred on public school campuses in the United States. The increased need for security and student support may crowd out instructional resources post-shooting. Shootings may also cause students, especially those from socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds, to move away, leading to declines in…

A joint report from the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education concluded that children and youth were 87 times more likely to die by murder or suicide outside of school than in it. How does the country weigh their awareness of the overall safe character of U.S. schools against the compelling desire to prevent…

This study determined the perceptions of school administrators who work at rural schools in Illinois classified as distant and remote on whether they need to be allowed to carry concealed weapons in order to protect themselves and their students by responding against armed intruders with deadly force. An existential conceptual/theoretical…

Public schools in southern Thailand have witnessed a sharp decline in school enrollment and have struggled to remain open due to an ongoing separatist insurgency since 2004. The purpose of this sequential exploratory mixed methods research is to examine the current situation and the psychosocial factors impacting public school enrollment in…

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…

Historically, students of color have experienced an increased risk for exclusionary discipline outcomes (Children's Defense Fund, 1975). Discipline disproportionality continues to be a major problem in our schools today (McIntosh et al., 2018). The focus of most of the research has been on African American males; however, African American females…

This is the 25th edition of Indicators of School Crime and Safety. This report provides summary statistics to inform the nation about current aspects of crime and safety in schools. This report does so by highlighting selected findings from 23 indicators on various school crime and safety topics. By synthesizing findings in this way, the report…

Virginia law mandates the use of threat assessment in all public schools, yet there is little research on grade-level differences. This study investigated a statewide sample of 3,282 threats from 1,021 schools. Threats significantly differed across grade level in demographics, characteristics, and outcome. As grade increased, students were more…

This is the 24th in a series of annual publications. Beginning with the 2020 edition, this report has been redesigned with the intention of increasing its usability for a wider audience. This report does so by highlighting selected findings from 23 indicators on various school crime and safety topics. It first examines different types of student…

This report examines findings from the 2020 PACE/USC Rossier poll of California voters. The poll represents the views of 2,000 registered California voters across a range of topics from early childhood education to higher education. Based on these results, the authors have identified five key findings: (1) There is growing pessimism about the…

The data used in this report come from the 2017 School Crime Supplement (SCS), a nationally representative sample survey of students ages 12 through 18 enrolled in public or private school for all or part of the school year (not homeschooled for all of the school year). The SCS is administered every other year to students as a supplement to the…

According to a national [2017-18] survey conducted by National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), school counselors overwhelmingly oppose efforts to arm educators as a response to gun violence in schools. Nearly three-quarters of 2,251 counselors who responded were either "somewhat opposed" or "strongly…