Many effective strategies exist to keep students safe, supported, and engaged in school. Restorative practice (RP) is a powerful approach for achieving these goals as it elevates student voice and can strengthen school climate. Annie M. White and John Kenneth Weiss share findings from an initiative through which high school student-faculty teams…

Background: Educational leadership perspectives are missing from existing literature related to school shootings, which have been dominated instead by experts in criminal justice, law enforcement, and psychology. Purpose: In this article, we systematically review the literature base on educational leadership related to school shootings in the…

Exposure to school violence has adverse effects on student academic performance and behavior. A safe school environment is essential for student and staff safety and achievement. Safety approaches include authoritative measures, which use security cameras, metal detectors, and controlled building access; and educational measures that include…

A variety of factors are associated with the likelihood of reporting guns at school; however, mixed empirical findings hinder our ability to inform policies to reduce school violence. Additionally, many of the established factors are difficult to change over time, and limited attention has been devoted to more malleable factors such as anonymous…

Our nation's postsecondary institutions are entrusted to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for the students, faculty, and staff who live, work, and study on campus. Planning for emergencies may be challenging for institutions of higher education (IHEs) because of geography, environment, governance, around-the clock-operations, and…

Multiple professional associations and agencies have recommended that schools establish threat assessment processes and procedures. Such recommendations have been directed at school districts in Colorado, a state that has experienced multiple school shootings. In this exploratory study, the nature and prevalence of threat assessment conducted in…

The data in this report are from the 2003-04, 2005-06, 2007-08, 2009-10, 2015-16, and 2017-18 administrations of the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). SSOCS is a nationally representative sample survey of public elementary and secondary schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The survey asks principals about the prevalence…

The study purpose was to identify associations between assault deterrent presence in kindergarten through 12th (K-12) grade schools and physical assaults (PAs) against educators. Data collected through a two-phase study identified physical and nonphysical violent events and utilized a nested case-control study to identify PA risk/protective…

This article explores the unexpected discovery of a significant divergence between the strong feelings of safety and belonging reported in a school and neighborhood safety survey, and the discursive, contradictory, and complex narratives about safety revealed by students' storytelling through theater and narratives shared with researchers in a…

Research on sexual violence and sexual harassment (SVSH) in academia has grown since the 1980s; however, the needs of graduate student survivors have received comparably little attention, which contributes to forms of institutional betrayal that specifically impact graduate students. As part of a multi-campus study on experiences of SVSH and…

Arming teachers remains a divisive issue in the United States. Since one goal of this policy is to improve perceptions of safety, it is important to understand how arming teachers impacts students. Using survey data from six Midwestern school districts, we apply Ferraro's risk assessment model to explore how individual and school conditions impact…

Colleges across the country are striving to ensure student safety, promote cultures of consent, and maintain compliance with the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (Campus SaVE Act) through sexual violence prevention programs and education (Cox, 2018). These concepts are already complicated, but colleges and universities often gear their…

Prevention of sexual violence is of vital importance, especially on university campuses where sexual violence occurs at particularly high rates. Universities are federally required to implement prevention programming, but little is known about retention over time. In addition, research has not analyzed the relationship between sexual violence…

This dissertation examines the effects of neighborhood characteristics on Detroit Public School Community District students' attendance rates for the 2018-19 school year. First, I analyze the effects of daylight savings time, relative to school start time, on absences for elementary and middle school students. By observing the natural change in…

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…