Positive school climate has been identified as a moderator of the relationship between peer bullying victimization and negative outcomes, but it is unclear if this protective effect extends to students who are bullied by their teachers or other school staff. This study examined the adjustment of students who experienced bullying by teachers compared to peers and whether an authoritative school climate moderated this relationship. The sample consisted of 201,480 U.S. students in 313 high schools who completed a Virginia statewide school climate survey with measures of bullying, depression, anxiety, academic engagement, and feelings of school belonging. Students were classified into four groups: no bullying (84

Behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) is a proactive approach to identifying, evaluating, and managing student threats of violence. BTAM teams typically include school administrators, mental health professionals, and school resource officers (SRO); however, the presence of SROs in schools is controversial. This multiple case study examined SRO roles on BTAM teams through inductive analysis of semi-structured interview responses of 5 SROs, 7 district safety leads, and 9 mental health professionals using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines. Key findings include (1) SROs had prior interest in working with youth or in schools and received relevant training before joining the BTAM team; (2) SROs worked collaboratively as part of the BTAM team throughout the process; and (3) SROs maintained boundaries between school discipline and law enforcement throughout the process. Findings may inform school policy and practice by clarifying how SROs are prepared for and serve on BTAM teams.

OBJECTIVE:School threat assessment is a widely used strategy for preventing violence. However, there have been few studies of student attacks following a threat assessment. Additionally, most existing studies have been conducted within a single state, limiting the generalizability of findings. Thus, the primary purpose of this study was to identify student- and school-level correlates of attack rates in a multistate sample of schools. HYPOTHESES:We hypothesized that most threat assessment cases will not lead to attacks, but that attacks will be more likely in more serious threat cases. We hypothesized that attacks will be lower in schools using safety staff (including school resource officers and security guards) and anonymous reporting systems. METHOD:Based on 2,349 case records from 166 schools in five U.S. states, this study examined the frequency of student attacks following a threat assessment using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines. The study also examined the relationships between threat classification and school safety measures with student attack outcomes (injury or no injury). RESULTS:There were 234 (10%) cases involving an attack, and seven (0.3%) resulted in serious injury to the target. The odds of an attack were approximately 20 times greater for serious threats compared to nonserious threats. The presence of school safety measures did not significantly correlate with student attacks or injury. CONCLUSIONS:School threat assessment teams can manage student threats of violence with few subsequent attacks but should anticipate that threat classification is strongly associated with the likelihood of an attack and therefore warrants increased intervention and preventive actions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

ABSTRACTAlthough behavioral threat assessment and management (often shortened to “threat assessment”) has become widely used in US schools, no studies have systematically examined how frequently schools conduct threat assessments and how threat assessment rates vary as a function of student and school demographics. Of particular concern is that students with disabilities receive threat assessments at disproportionately high rates. This study examined the 1‐year frequency of threat assessments in a statewide sample of 611 elementary, 341 middle, and 269 high schools reporting 15,301 threat assessments, of which 41% concerned students with disabilities. We identified threat assessment rate differences associated with student grade, gender, race/ethnicity, and disability status. We further examined the association between threat assessment rates and school‐level demographic characteristics including racial/ethnic composition, prevalence of economically disadvantaged students, and proportion of students with a disability. To place these results in context, we compared findings for threat assessment with out‐of‐school suspension rates. We discuss reasons why students with disabilities might be referred for BTAM at a high rate and recommend practices for assuring their educational rights and needs are safeguarded. Evolving school threat assessment policies should recognize the practice demands placed on school staff to evaluate a substantial number of students.

Objective: Behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) is a form of violence risk assessment that has been widely adopted in U.S. public schools. However, there are concerns that the involvement of law enforcement officers in schools on BTAM teams could lead to criminalization of student misbehavior and exacerbate disparities in arrests for students of color and students with disabilities. This study investigated school-based arrests, court charges, and incarcerations for a sample of 18,411 Florida students in 1,646 schools who received a threat assessment using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines. Hypotheses: Consistent with prior studies, we hypothesized that law enforcement actions would have a low prevalence and there would be no disparities associated with race/ethnicity, family income, or disability status. Method: A series of Bayesian multilevel logistic regression models was estimated to evaluate whether law enforcement actions (arrest, charge, incarceration) varied by school-level characteristics and student-level regressors (demographics and threat classification). Results: Approximately 1% of students received a law enforcement action. Law enforcement actions were associated most strongly with student grade and seriousness of their threat. There was evidence of equitable law enforcement actions for student characteristics of race/ethnicity, family income, and disability status. Conclusion: These results are consistent with prior studies in smaller samples of Virginia schools. This study contributes to the policy debate over the role of law enforcement officers in schools by showing that schools using threat assessment teams with officers did not generate high rates of law enforcement actions or inequitable outcomes often observed for disadvantaged student groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The widespread adoption of behavioral threat assessment across the United States has raised concerns about equity in exclusionary school discipline. This study examined out-of-school suspension (OSS), placement change, and expulsion rates for a statewide sample of approximately 19,000 students who received a threat assessment in 1,700 Florida schools using the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines. Bayesian multilevel logistic regression indicated that disciplinary outcomes were strongly associated with team determination of threat seriousness, but not school-level characteristics other than greater exclusionary discipline in secondary schools. Student-level disability and low income were associated with lower rates of exclusionary discipline. Black and Hispanic students had slightly higher suspension rates, but expulsion and placement change rates were not different than White students. In contrast to the disparities typically observed in school discipline, threat assessment was associated with only small or no disparities, supporting the equity of threat assessment for groups typically disadvantaged by disproportionate exclusionary discipline.Impact StatementA Best Practices statement by the National Association of School Psychologists described behavioral threat assessment and management as a critical component of efforts to prevent violence by students, but cautioned that the process must be properly implemented so that it does not lead to the overuse of exclusionary discipline for students of color and students with disabilities. This statewide study of 19,000 threat assessments in 1,700 Florida public schools found largely equitable outcomes in out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and school transfer for students grouped by race/ethnicity, disability, and low-income status.

PURPOSE:Although the harmful outcomes of peer bullying are well-established, the effects of bullying by teachers are less understood. Teacher bullying occurs when a teacher uses their authority to punish or disparage a student beyond appropriate discipline. METHODS:This study investigated the prevalence of teacher bullying and its relationship with student risk-taking behaviors in a sample of 106,865 high school students who completed a statewide school climate survey. Students were classified into four groups: no bullying (91%), only peer bullying (4%), only teacher bullying (4%), and both peer and teacher bullying (2%). RESULTS:Logistic regression results indicated that all victimization groups were more likely to participate in risk behaviors (substance use, weapon carrying, fighting, suicidal ideation, and attempts) than nonbullied peers, and students bullied by both peers and teachers were at greatest jeopardy of participation. DISCUSSION:These results support greater attention to teacher bullying in antibullying efforts.

Behavioral threat assessment is a widely used violence prevention strategy in schools, but there is little research on how frequently a student attempts to carry out a threat of violence after a threat assessment and whether schools accurately recognize and classify these cases. This study investigated: 1) how often students attempted violence and 2) whether threats judged to be more serious were more likely to be attempted. As part of a statewide assessment, 21 Florida public school districts submitted deidentified records of 621 threat cases from the 2020-2021 academic year. Of these, 107 (17%) threats were attempted and 3 (0.5%) resulted in a serious injury. Threats classified by school teams as serious substantive (OR = 27) or very serious substantive (OR = 50) were significantly more likely to be attempted than non-threats. Overall, these findings support a strong association between threat classification and likelihood a threat is attempted.

Students who have carried out lethal attacks at their schools have attracted worldwide attention. However, the backgrounds and motives of these youth often do not match typical portrayals. Some fit the common characterization that they are depressed youth who act in retaliation for grievances such as bullying, but many others are delinquent youth with predatory intentions, and a few have serious mental illness with delusional motives. Although there is no psychological profile of a juvenile who commits a school attack, often there are warning signs that make prevention possible. School threat assessment is a promising violence prevention strategy that focuses on identifying angry, distressed, or mentally ill youth at the point where they engage in threatening statements or behavior in order to take supportive and protective actions. Threat assessment also helps school authorities to avoid overreacting to student misbehavior that does not pose a serious threat.

This study investigated teacher perceptions of school resource officers (SROs) and their associations with school safety. The sample consisted of 10,668 teachers in 404 middle schools and 11,900 teachers in 284 high schools. Most middle (86.5%) and high (85.5%) school teachers agreed that the SRO makes them feel safer; however, endorsement differed by race, gender, and teaching experience. Regression analyses found favorable teacher perceptions of their SRO were associated with a greater feeling of safety and security, higher job commitment, and lower teacher victimization. Although correlational, these results add a missing teacher perspective that should be considered in policy debates over the role of SROs in schools.

Behavioral threat assessment and intervention is a violence prevention strategy that has become widely used in US schools. Instead of relying on a zero tolerance disciplinary approach that often leads to school exclusion of students with disabilities, schools can use a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to assess the seriousness and context of a student's behavior and identify appropriate interventions and supports. This process is especially valuable for students with disabilities who are identified as threatening violence. This chapter describes an evidence-based model of threat assessment, the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), 1 reviews some common misunderstandings of threat assessment, and presents a case example illustrating the value of threat assessment in preventing school exclusion, and provides services for a student with a disability.

National interest in using school climate as an accountability measure makes it important to understand how school leaders view and make use of school climate data. The purpose of this study was to investigate how school and district administrators use climate data in Virginia, where a statewide school climate survey is annually administered. School principals ( N = 283) completed surveys concerning their use of the school climate results for their school. Simultaneously, semi-structured interviews were conducted with school division leaders and school administrators ( N = 10) to deepen our understanding of how the school climate results were being used. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify patterns in the data. Study results reflect a consensus by educational leaders on the utility of receiving school climate data in order to make data-based decisions to improve outcomes for students. Participants provided thoughtful and constructive feedback on the importance of student relationships, perceptions of student subgroups, comparing their data with other schools, and ways to facilitate data-based decision-making. Participants also expressed a desire for additional support in understanding statistical results and generating recommendations for school improvement. These findings suggest that increasing the clarity and comprehensiveness of school climate data reports and providing support for interpreting the results will increase educational leaders’ ability to use school climate surveys.

This study constructed a six-item Teen Dating Aggression (TDA) scale, investigated the prevalence of TDA in a statewide sample, and identified associations between TDA and high-risk behaviors and academic adjustment. Based on a review of literature, TDA included physical harm, threats to harm, verbal aggression, forced sexual contact, coercion to use alcohol or drugs, and harassment after the relationship ended. The sample consisted of 32,428 students (Grades 9-12) in 320 Virginia high schools who completed a statewide school climate survey. Participation rates were 99% for schools and 80.5% for students. Confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression analyses investigated the associations between TDA and high-risk behaviors and poor academic adjustment. School fixed-effects analyses accounted for school-level influences in student responses. Nearly four in 10 students (39%) reported experiencing at least one form of dating aggression in the past year. The 12,596 students who experienced TDA (40%) in the past year reported more marijuana use (26% vs. 13%), alcohol use (40% vs. 22%), fighting (13% vs. 5%), suicidal ideation (31% vs. 13%), and suicide attempts (17% vs. 5%), as well as lower school engagement, educational aspirations, and grades than 19,832 students who dated without TDA. The current study emphasized the need for dating aggression to be a focus of secondary school prevention programs due its associations with poorer academic performance, high-risk behavior with potentially serious mental health consequences. Accurate assessment of TDA can also guide the evaluation of intervention programs that target TDA.

School threat assessment is a violence prevention strategy that has become widely used over the past 20 years; however, the procedures for a threat assessment are not well-known in education and it has received relatively little research attention. This article describes the rationale, procedures, and empirical support for the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines and also presents new findings from a study of graduation rates for 146 students who received a threat assessment in two large school districts. The graduation rate for these students was 83%, which was lower than the graduation rate for the general school population but comparable to the rate for control students with similar risk factors.

National debate over law enforcement in schools has largely overlooked student reporting of violent threats to school resource officer (SROs). This statewide assessment of Virginia high school students (n = 99,358) found that the majority of Black (64%), Hispanic (72%), White (71%), and other racial/ethnic identity (71%) students agreed the SRO made them feel safer at school. Logistic regressions revealed that positive perceptions of the SRO and frequency of speaking with the SRO were associated with increased willingness to report a peer who brought a gun to school or talked about killing someone. Perceptions of the SRO interacted with student race/ethnicity such that favorable views reduced disparities in nonwhite students' willingness to report a peer with a gun. Although correlational, these results suggest that positive relationships with SROs encourage students to report threats of peer violence.

This article summarizes the accomplishments of research on school safety in the past quarter century, identifies important gaps, and indicates promising directions for further progress. Although closely related, there are distinguishable bodies of research on physical and psychological safety. Physical safety research concerns the prevention of violent attacks through security measures, school discipline, and threat assessment. Psychological safety is focused on protecting students from less severe, but serious, acts of peer aggression such as harassment and bullying, and includes research on multitiered programs and school climate. This article recognizes substantial support for some school safety practices while emphasizing the need for research on other widely used practices. School safety research has much to offer school psychologists in fostering physically and psychologically safe schools that produce students who develop into well-educated and responsible citizens.

Abstract This chapter distinguishes behavioral threat assessment from other forms of violence risk assessment and identifies some specific features of student threat assessment in schools. The Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) is presented as an evidence-based model for assessment and intervention with students who have threatened violence. The CSTAG model uses a five-step decision tree that allows multidisciplinary teams to take a problem-solving approach to violence prevention that involves gathering information, identifying problems or conflicts underlying a student’s threatening behavior, and taking actions to support the student and protect others from harm. Clinical interviewing of the threatening individual and corroborating sources is an essential component of the threat assessment process. Personality assessment instruments can help the team formulate an understanding of the student’s risk and protective factors and shape intervention strategies. A case example illustrates the threat assessment and intervention process.