Virginia became the first state to do so after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. Require universities to conduct threat assessmentslater required K-12 schools to do the same.
The threat assessment was adopted from the Secret Service as a way for schools to understand which student threats are precursors to violence. When following these methods, a team trained on the model will work to identify how much of a threat the student threat really is. When a threat is made, a team of school administrators, mental health professionals, and law enforcement officers investigate, gather facts, interview witnesses, and determine the level of threat.
That has become pervasive. Recently, with Virginia, 8 states It also requires schools such as Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas to have threat assessment teams. According to one study, 64% of public schools have a threat assessment team. Educational Sciences Research Institute Report Data from the 2019-2020 academic year is used.
But there was a problem. What exactly “threat assessment” means varies by school, and it’s not necessarily evidence-based, says Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia. Quoting from these protocols.
Proponents say it gives threat assessments a bad name. In a culture of fear and anxiety about school violence, schools may overreact and mislabel inappropriate disciplinary practices, some researchers argue.
Will the National Center for School Safety’s new guidelines help?
A controversial practice?
Mixing law enforcement and education is not widespread.
Proponents argue that threat assessments will reduce suspensions in schools and reduce reliance on “zero tolerance” policies for threats. These harsh policies, which suspend or expel students for violations regardless of the circumstances, are known to have a disproportionate impact. punish black and hispanic students.
Still, the threat assessment process has been criticized for unfairly targeting some student groups, particularly students. students receiving special education.Critics say these assessments label students as offensive and that they being denied the help they need. These critics tend to favor increased investment in mental health services over police presence, arguing that it makes police presence possible. Strengthening the school-to-prison pipeline.
For Cornell University, this is confusing, partially due to the lack of standardization of threat assessment components.
Cornell University says there is a “reasonable consensus” in the field about what constitutes evidence-based practice. That includes a fact-oriented process in evaluation, a multidisciplinary evaluation team, an effort to distinguish between the level and severity of threats, and an effort to resolve threats and support students, Cornell said.
But, he added, schools too often slap a “threat assessment” label on any discipline regime, even though it is “the exact opposite of a threat assessment.” Cornell University points to the zero-tolerance framework and claims it is the “antithesis” of threat assessment approaches that seek to place threats within their context. “There is a perception among some critics that schools are overreacting to student threats because they have threat assessment programs, and more often than not, because they are not conducting threat assessments. “I think there’s a program,” he says.
He hopes the new guidelines will be helpful.
Cornell University recently co-authored the following paper: tool kit Data for the National Center for School Safety based on interviews with approximately 200 experts. The guidelines instruct schools on how to recruit and train evaluation teams, maintain records, evaluate programs, and avoid exacerbating disparities.
The authors hope this will lead schools to a more evidence-based approach and prevent schools from widening disparities in their use of threat assessments.
Prevent tragedy or deal with anxiety?
While reducing suspensions is desirable, many schools and lawmakers have adopted such policies in response to school shootings.
The increase in threat ratings comes at a time when schools are desperate for what’s next. Responding to violence and student misbehaviorfrom pouring millions of dollars into Unproven weapons detection industry Nervous reinstatement of suspension as punishment.
But there is also no way to definitively prove threat assessment Please stop school shootings.
According to Cornell University, that’s because school shootings are statistically very rare. Given that, he suggests that it is impossible to prove that these assessments will deter school shootings, even using strict criteria. On the contrary, he says, a Cornell University study showed that recognition correlated with less bullying and fighting.
Is that enough? The focus on these techniques may suggest they only help prevent extremely rare school shootings, Cornell said. He added that while fear of a shooting may be the trigger, threat assessment is extremely helpful in categorizing student aggression and choosing appropriate responses in times of fear.
