JPRC

Bullying and Disability: Student Survey Analysis (2011)

School Safety

Bullying and Disability: Student Survey Analysis (2011)

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We analyzed statewide student survey data from Maine to examine the risk of bullying for disabled students. The study was completed as part of the Institute of Education Sciences’ Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Program in December 2011. The findings were also published in the Journal of Knowledge and Best Practices in Juvenile Justice & Psychology in 2015.

This project responded to stakeholder requests in the REL-Northeast Islands region. Researchers used statewide data from the 2009 Maine Integrated Youth Health High School Survey (MIYHS) to analyze and compare rates of reported bullying for disabled and non-disabled students. The MIYHS is a biennial survey of students from grades 9–12.

Key Research Questions

Researchers responded to these key research questions:

  • Do high school students who have a disability report being bullied more than non-disabled students? How do rates of reported bullying for disabled students vary by type of disability (physical/health disability and emotional/behavioral disability)?
  • How do rates of reported bullying for disabled and non-disabled students vary by location (on- vs. off-school grounds) and method (in person vs. electronic)?
  • Within demographic categories such as gender, grade, race, and sexual orientation, what percentage of bullied students were disabled?

Key Findings

Findings from national and international research that indicate that students with disabilities are at risk for bullying were supported:

  • High school students with disabilities in Maine are more likely than their non-disabled peers to be bullied; while students with either physical or emotional/behavioral disabilities were at risk for being bullied, students with emotional/behavioral disabilities were more likely to be bullied than students with physical disabilities
  • This increased risk existed across location and type of bullying; students with disabilities were more likely to experience bullying on or off school grounds or via electronic means (e.g., “cyber-bullying”)
  • Specific groups of students with disabilities; Hispanic students, students of “other” races, students of multiple races; and students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or who are not sure of their sexual orientation are even more likely to be victimized by bullying than other disabled students

Providing technical assistance to enhance school capacity to prevent youth violence

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The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded K–12 educational communities across the country to support their efforts to address youth violence by identifying needs and implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention efforts. In collaboration with our partner and lead organization, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the JPRC (and teammates from WestEd’s Resilient and Health Schools and Communities) will provide direct technical assistance to a selected number of these grantees. Our team will support grantees in their planning and implementation of specific programs and strategies to prevent youth violence. We will lead several broader tasks, including providing webinars and other group learning opportunities, and creating tools and other resources for the field.

Published book chapter on restorative justice in schools

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Trevor Fronius of the JPRC coauthored a chapter (with Sean Darling-Hammond of UCLA’s School of Public Health) entitled “Restorative Practices in Schools” in The Handbook of Classroom Management. The chapter provides an overview of research regarding restorative practices in U.S. K–12 schools, including a summary of the quantitative studies regarding the effectiveness of restorative practices across outcomes related to behavior. The chapter concludes with policy guidance for how to ensure restorative practices are leveraged in a manner that fosters student and community growth.

(Note the chapter is behind a paywall)

FROM THE JPRC DIRECTOR’S DESK: Q&A ARTICLE WITH DR. FRANK STRAUB

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In Everett, Washington in 2018, a young man planned an attack on his high school. He had drawn up plans to shoot students and use explosives at the school. Fortunately, his grandmother read his plan before he carried it out. She contacted authorities, who, following an investigation that uncovered a rifle and several hand grenades, arrested the 18-year-old. The individual is now serving a 22-year sentence for attempted murder.

Such instances of averted school violence, while chilling to learn about, represent a success story from one important perspective: The plan was short-circuited and never came to fruition, saving human lives and suffering. How can we learn from these averted school attacks? How can this sort of information be used to create safer schools?

To answer these and other questions, we asked Dr. Frank Straub, the Senior Director of Violence Prevention Research and Programs at Safe and Sound Schools to respond. Previously, Dr. Straub served as the founder and director of the National Policing Institute’s Center for Targeted Violence Prevention where he developed the Averted School Violence (ASV) Database. Dr. Straub also served for over 30 years in federal, state, and local law enforcement, leading agencies in New York, Indiana, and the State of Washington. During his time with the New York City Police Department, he was Deputy Commissioner of Training and Assistant Commissioner for Counterterrorism. He is the author of numerous publications on averted school violence and many other topics, including, A Comparison of Averted and Completed School Attacks from the Police Foundation Averted School Violence Database.

Why should we study averted acts of violence against schools?

The rationale behind Safe and Sound Schools’ Averted School Violence Project is that we can learn about how and why intended school attacks were stopped. By studying such averted school attacks, we can better identify failure points in safety systems, recognize those policies and practices that may have led to a foiled act, and thereby invest more wisely in school safety. From a practical standpoint, averted incidents occur more frequently than completed attacks, giving us a bigger sample to learn from. We identify and analyze completed attacks as well. The ultimate goal, of course, is to prevent future attacks.

Any surprises when comparing completed versus averted acts of school violence?

Surprisingly, our data indicate more similarities than differences when we study averted and completed targeted school attacks. For example, averted and completed attacks occur with more frequency in suburban and rural communities than in urban communities. Public high schools with less than 2,000 students are the most frequent targets of current or recently former students, ages 14–18, who plan or carry out targeted school attacks.

One critical difference between averted and completed attacks is how leakage is handled. Leakage occurs when others know about the planned attack before it occurs because the intended perpetrator has told someone, posted a threat online, and so on. Unfortunately, in completed acts, either this leakage was not reported, or if it was reported, no one acted on it. As we are learning from averted incidents, as in the example from Washington above, leakage did lead to the planned attack being foiled. Maybe it was a friend, a family member, or another student, but someone reported this leakage to the local or school police, or to educators, so that someone intervened.

One of the “surprises” we are seeing now is that persons planning targeted school attacks are getting younger, and more and more of the planners are engaged in online extremist and/or violent ideology.

We caution, however, that the ASV data is based on incidents we identify in the public domain (usually news reports or social media) or that educators or others in the school community report to us. We know we are missing instances of school violence that were averted but went unreported, which is why we want to really encourage publicity of the database and increase reporting.

What insights does the ASV data provide for school-based behavioral threat assessment teams?

Behavioral threat assessment teams are critical to identifying high-risk/high-need students and preventing targeted school attacks. One of the important lessons we’ve learned is that behavioral threat assessment teams represent the first step in what can be a long process of intervention and management of high-risk adolescents in a community context. These multi-disciplinary behavioral threat assessment and management teams have an opportunity to identify concerning behaviors, intervene, and therefore stop intended acts of violence.

But what is concerning? What should get their attention? ASV provides critical information regarding the motivations, behaviors, and methods of persons who planned and or completed the more than 300 incidents of school violence recorded in the database. It’s a good source of information on the types of behaviors that intended attackers were exhibiting on their pathway to violence.

How has the ASV data been used to address needs?

We learned from our data on averted and completed school violence that the high-risk/high-need student that comes to the attention of a behavioral threat assessment team has to be managed in the community as well as the school. Even more critically, these individuals can be lost between systems—school, mental health, law enforcement, juvenile/criminal justice, and other agencies—particularly when they leave school and fall from everyone’s radar.

These data, in part, led to a new program, Prevent 2 Protect, a collaborative effort by Michigan State University’s Department of Psychiatry and Safe and Sound Schools to prevent adolescent involvement in school violence. In Michigan, high-risk/high-need students identified by school behavioral threat assessment and management teams can be referred to Prevent 2 Protect. If the student meets our criteria, they receive a full psychiatric evaluation, an in-depth assessment of criminogenic factors, and a needs assessment. The student and their families receive an individualized care plan and then work with our community-based intensive support teams—a case manager and a mentor—who help the student and their caregivers navigate support and intervention systems longitudinally. We are thrilled that the state of Michigan has invested in providing this program to its state’s educational community for the next five years.

How can schools and police departments contribute to the ASV database?

School personnel, law enforcement, mental health practitioners, students, parents, and other members of school communities can enter an incident into the Averted School Violence Database. Reports can be made anonymously, or the persons can provide contact information, which allows the ASV team to follow up (confidentially) and obtain additional information.

What barriers are you facing in this work?

Funding has posed challenges over the years. However, we have received increasing financial support from the Motorola Solutions Foundation. Michigan State University’s Prevent 2 Protect project is also providing financial support through September 2027. The funding has allowed us to rebuild the website and database, which will facilitate user access and improve data analysis and reporting.

Increasing the number of averted incidents reported to the database by practitioners in the field remains a challenge. Most of the incidents were identified by the ASV team in the media or in social media.

What can the Justice and Prevention Research Center (JPRC) do?

The JPRC can continue to help promote the Averted School Violence project and encourage members of school communities to report incidents of averted and completed school attacks to the database. This article is a great start. We also welcome the JPRC as a research partner as we move ahead to make schools and communities safer.

Systematic review of research on the effects of school-based law enforcement

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High-profile incidents of gun violence in schools across the country have escalated demand from parents, teachers, policymakers, and school leaders for stronger school safety interventions. School-based law enforcement (SBLE) has become a standard intervention, growing steadily over the past several decades. However, a new report, co-written by the JPRC team with Professor Ben Fisher of the University of Wisconsin, indicates this strategy has not demonstrated effectiveness. Published by the international Campbell Collaboration, the review summarizes 32 evaluations that looked at any outcomes of SBLE implementation related to crime and behavior, perceptions of safety, and learning outcomes. Results indicate that SBLE presence is linked with an increase in school crime and behavior problems and is associated with increases in school discipline.

“Schools aiming to enhance safety might benefit by shifting resources away from using school-based law enforcement,” said Fisher, the study’s lead author. “Instead, investing in evidence-based strategies, such as school climate improvement designed to prevent problematic behaviors and improve school safety, could yield more positive outcomes.”

The following findings challenge the notion that SBLE contributes positively to students’ overall safety and well-being.

Key findings:

• There was no demonstrated reduction in crime and violence.

• Consistent with other research, SBLE was associated with an increase in exclusionary discipline such as out-of-school suspension.

• There was mixed evidence on whether SBLE makes students and staff feel safer, but this was based on very few studies.

“This study highlights the need for a thoughtful and evidence-based approach to school safety,” said JPRC Director and study co-author Anthony Petrosino. “For schools currently utilizing school-based law enforcement, we recommend a careful examination to ensure that the model has no harmful effects on students, such as exclusionary discipline—and is genuinely providing safety benefits for students and staff.”

Perceptions of State School Safety Centers (SSSCs) Supports and Services

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Few empirical studies exist on SSSCs. The NIJ funded the JPRC to conduct an evaluation to address this gap. Two prior reports from this project have been issued: States’ School Safety Centers: A Brief Look into History, Characteristics, and Activities; and Research and Evaluation on School Safety: The Structure, Services, and Products of State School Safety Centers.

The recently released third report summarizes the research that JPRC conducted to better understand the structure, services, and perceptions of SSSCs to identify promising practices and models for replication, expansion, and evaluation. This report uses data from interviews with key education leaders involved in school safety efforts in each state who engage with their states’ SSSC services, as well as a survey of superintendents and principals in states with an SSSC.

Key Insights:

  • Awareness of SSSCs: The majority of district and school leaders were aware of their SSSCs, but there is an opportunity to further expand awareness to principals and teachers.
  • SSSCs assume primarily a guidance role: Online resources, training, and technical assistance are the most used SSSC supports.
  • Participants and interested parties have positive perceptions of SSSCs: Services are rated as easy to access, useful, comprehensive, high quality, and aligned with safety needs. However, there may be an opportunity for improvement in ensuring that services align seamlessly with state safety requirements and encompass best practices.
  • There are opportunities for improvement: Feedback from surveys identified areas for possible improvements, including increasing staff capacity; improving websites; increasing outreach; and adding new supports for threat assessment, mental health, and leadership trainings.