This paper reports on the research methodology and findings from a study that investigated how often students attempted violence and whether the threats that had been judged to be more serious were more likely to be attempted, focusing on 21 Florida public school districts from the 2020-2021 academic year; it notes that the findings support a strong association between threat classification and its likelihood of being attempted.
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 percent) threats were attempted and 3 (0.5 percent) 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. (Published Abstract Provided)
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