Safer Schools: Efforts to Improve School Climate in Virginia

• NCJ Number: 304390
• Date Published: April 2022
• Grant Number(s): 2017-CK-BX-0007
• Agencies: NIJ
• Award: Improvement of School Climate Assessment in Virginia Secondary Schools

Annotation

This article details results from when the National Institute of Justice funded University of Virginia researchers to interview and survey stakeholders about their past and possible future use of the previous research findings.

Abstract

Studies have demonstrated that school climate is critical to school safety and violence prevention. These findings have resulted in the desire for many states to measure the characteristics of school climate with empirical data. Researchers from the University of Virginia (UVA) have been working with the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop rigorous survey scales to measure and assess school climate consistently over time in Virginia schools. This article details results from when the National Institute of Justice funded UVA researchers to interview and survey stakeholders about their past and possible future use of the previous research findings.