A State Mandated School Threat Assessment. Here’s What It Meant for Students

• NCJ Number: 307512
• Journal: Education Week Dated: 2023
• Author(s): Evie Blad
• Date Published: 2023
• Grant Number(s): 2020-RF-CX-0002
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This article reports on research, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, providing an analysis of one year’s worth of data from more than 23,000 student threat assessment educators, conducted in Florida schools during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Abstract

This article reports on an analysis of one year’s worth of data from the Florida school threat assessment during the 2021-2022 academic year. The author provides a brief discussion of the causes behind the number of black students being suspended, and five key findings from the analysis: states and districts need better data; most student threats were deemed “transient;” counseling and parent meetings are common responses to threats; researchers detected disparities by students’ race and disability status; and finally, that more research into the topic is forthcoming. The author notes that University of Virginia researchers have found that the practice which was designed to intervene before students act on threatening behavior, has been “widely, but not uniformly, successful.”