In this article, the author shares his thoughts for district administrators regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary school tragedy. Administrators heard a lot of potential solutions or attempts at solutions. However, these proposals raise lengthy lists of implementation questions and issues that illustrate a lack of understanding of school operations,…

Children have been taught to demonstrate a safety response when they encounter a dangerous stimulus using behavioral skills training (BST). However, little research has evaluated the usefulness of BST to teach safety skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the current study, we evaluated BST to establish a generalized repertoire…

Entertainment-education has proved to be an engaging medium through which to explore health and social issues in populations. Given the popularity of the zombie theme in popular culture it is no surprise therefore that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted this theme in an effort to engage youth and young adults in emergency…

Ensuring that children are safe is imperative for any educational institution. This case presents a realistic scenario of the safety concerns of leaders and staff in a middle school concerned with potential gang activity. Inspired by actual events, this case illustrates burdens that many middle school leaders across the nation face on a daily…

Survival for public school teachers goes beyond curriculum design, discipline and other skills. School law is critical for teachers to face the areas of challenge that are currently present. There are two types of common legal mistakes made by teachers: a) failing to take disciplinary action when they should, and b) unintentionally violating…

President Obama's 2009 speech in Prague is remembered as a call for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. It reinvigorated a long-overdue policy debate in the United States and Europe. Unfortunately, that debate is characterized by a focus on arsenal size that borders on numerology, a lack of imagination consistent with presentism, and…

In recent decades, the number of school resource officers has exploded. In 2013, about 30 percent of schools had one, as compared to 1 percent in 1975, The New York Times reported in 2018. These officers have increasingly received attention in the wake of high-profile school shootings. Yet relatively little is known about them. Who are they? How…

We analyze how fatal shootings in high schools affect schools and students using data from shooting databases, school report cards, and the Common Core of Data. We examine schools' test scores, enrollment, number of teachers, graduation, attendance, and suspension rates at schools that experienced a shooting, employing a difference-in-differences…

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report entitled "A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013" (Blair and Schweit 2014). The goal of the study is to provide law enforcement with data so there is a better understanding how to prevent, prepare for, and recover from active shooter…

A joint effort by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this annual report examines crime occurring in schools and colleges. This report presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population from an array of sources--the National Crime…

In 2008, in the case of the "District of Columbia vs. Heller," which involved a district law banning most handguns, the U. S. Supreme Court declared that the Second Amendment protects citizens' rights to self-defense and that the federal government cannot prohibit guns in homes. Two years later, the Court further made clear that the…

Horrific events such as the fatal shooting of three high school students in Chardon, Ohio, in the winter of 2012 places tremendous pressure on state and local agencies to ensure that schools provide a safe and conducive learning environment for all students. To help curb school violence, schools have adopted zero-tolerance policies, which often…

The United States has experienced several mass killings by firearms in the recent past, but none has stirred the passions of the nation's citizens like the killing of innocent schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut. Debates immediately began regarding proposed solutions for making students safer in schools. One recommendation for promoting…

Understanding the law has become an integral part of the work of higher education professionals, especially residence life staff. For decades, courts have contributed an increasingly important role in shaping the litigious nature of society at large and within higher education (Greenleaf, 1982). Barr and Associates (1988) noted the increasingly…

Suicide rates for college students were compared with rates for nonstudents using two definitions of students: full-time enrollment at 4-year institutions, and all-inclusive postsecondary enrollment. For traditionally aged females, comparing the suicide rate of students (3.0 per 100,000) to the rate for same-age nonstudents rather than the…