TxSSC

The TxSSC continuously expands its research portfolio on relevant school safety topics. Currently, we focus mainly in the areas of school policing, behavioral threat assessment, violence prevention, and communicable disease outbreaks. See information about recent, ongoing, upcoming, and prospective projects below.

Ongoing Projects

Funding Source: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) STOP School Violence Program, Award #15PBJA-23-GG-04397-STOP Funding Amount: $1,560,987 Project Duration: 2023-2026 Project Status: Implementation

About this Project

During the 2022-2023 school year, the TxSSC offered targeted and customized technical assistance sessions to Texas school districts to assist with the implementation of school behavioral threat assessment processes and procedures. The Operationalizing School Behavioral Threat Assessment (OSBTA) sessions consists of a meeting between TxSSC SBTA experts and district SBTA teams, focusing on reviewing districts' current processes, collecting information on challenges and successes of the implementation of the 8-step process, followed by the TxSSC providing customized action plans and follow-up assistance as needed. Due to the heightened and timely need for OSBTA sessions, the TxSSC pursued and was awarded grant funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to expand the program to offer 300 sessions between Spring of 2024 to Spring of 2026, with the goal of assisting at least 30 percent of Texas school districts.

Funding Source: N/A Funding Amount: N/A Project Duration: 2023–2024 Project Status: Data collection ongoing

About this Project

Exploratory research focused on determining the prevalence of guardians in each Texas public school district. This research will verify the kind of training guardians receive, identify the criteria for guardian selection, and additionally, an understanding of the level of awareness campus stakeholders have concerning guardians will be explored.

Funding Source: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) STOP School Violence Prevention and Mental Health Training Program, Award # 2019-YS-BX-0097 Funding Amount: $1 million Project Duration: 3 years, 2019–2022 Project Status: Final analysis and reporting completed

About this Project

As part of a school violence and suicide prevention initiative, the TxSSC partnered with Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) to offer two trainings from SHP’s Know the Signs program: Say Something and Start with Hello. The TxSSC will offer both courses using a train-the-trainer model, to teach educators how to deliver the trainings directly to students on their campuses. The train-the-trainer model allows substantially more educators and students to receive these evidence-based programs, thereby increasing the potential for identifying warning signs of violence and preventing tragedies. Together, the TxSSC and SHP will collect certain data elements from trained districts throughout the course of the grant, to better understand training implementation and saturation in Texas schools.

Funding Source: N/A Funding Amount: N/A Project Duration: Ongoing (2020 – present) Project Status: Manuscript published and next-phase project planning

About this Project

Texas public school districts often have memorandums of understanding between the district and the local law enforcement agency (municipal police departments or county Sheriff’s offices) outlining the terms for use of sworn peace officers as school resource officers. These agreements are not standardized and the terms often differ widely from district to district. Additionally, roles and duties of officers are often not outlined in MOUs. The TxSSC has analyzed official MOUs from all Texas public K-12 school districts that use school resource officers. TxSSC is in the process of creating a standardized MOU template to make freely available to all districts, as well as authoring manuscripts to add to the body of scholarly work examining police presence in schools.

Funding Source: N/A Funding Amount: N/A Project Duration: Ongoing (2020 – present) Project Status: Manuscript writing and next-phase project planning

About this Project

The TxSSC proposes to conduct a qualitative after-action review with Texas school districts regarding the coronavirus pandemic. To gather this formative after-action review data, we will hold focus groups comprised of education personnel to answer the following overarching research questions: 1) What actions were taken by school districts and campuses throughout the coronavirus pandemic? 2) What actions or plans worked well? 3) What actions or plans did not work well? 4) What lessons were learned to better prepare for or respond to similar situations in the future? 5) What resources/services can the TxSSC provide to assist districts in preparing for or responding to similar situations in the future? Findings from this preliminary fieldwork will aid in developing instruments for a larger multistage, mixed-methods research study (for details, see project, “A Multistage, Comprehensive COVID-19 After-Action Review with Public K-12 School Districts in Texas”).

Funding Source: N/A Funding Amount: N/A Project Duration: 6 months, 2023 Project Status: Manuscript writing and next-phase project planning

About this Project

A model of survey data from TxSSC SBTA training attendees analyzing the causal relationships between self-determination, emotional experiences, and motivation of educational personnel to learn and implement critical SBTA school safety processes.

Funding Source: TXST Department of Agricultural Sciences Funding Amount: TBD Project Duration: 2023-2024 Project Status: Data analysis and manuscript writing

About this Project

In collaboration with Texas State University Agricultural Sciences faculty, this project seeks to understand and identify how CTE facilities in Texas middle and high schools maintain infrastructure and student security in indoor and outdoor environments, as well as how these activities relate to school principals’ perceptions of their effectiveness.

Funding Source: NIJ Funding Amount: $852,868 Project Duration: 2021-2023 Project Status: Data analysis and manuscript writing

About this Project

In collaboration with WestEd, this project seeks to examine Texas’ statewide expansion of behavioral threat assessment training, and the impact of Texas’ behavioral threat assessment training model on student disciplinary and behavioral outcomes. The study includes a process evaluation, impact study, and concludes with a multi-site case study.

Completed Projects

Funding Source: National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Comprehensive School Safety Initiative Grant Award # 2016-CK-BX-0003 Funding Amount: $4.3 million Project Duration: 5 years, 2017–2021 Project Status: Complete

About this Project

In 2016-2017, the TxSSC synthesized formative research and best practices to develop a School-Based Law Enforcement Framework for integrating police into educational environments in a manner that increases safety and contributes to a positive school climate. The TxSSC partnered with the College of Education at Texas State University and WestEd to rigorously examine how implementing this framework contributes to a variety of outcomes. We worked with 25 middle and high school campuses across six school districts throughout the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. The implementation phase of this project concluded June 2020 and the data analysis and dissemination phase concludes December 2021.

Funding Source: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) STOP School Violence Threat Assessment and Technology Reporting Program, Award # 2018-YS-BX-0110 Funding Amount: $1 million Project Duration: 3 years, 2019–2022 Project Status: Complete

About this Project

In partnership with the Texas Education Agency and SIGMA Threat Management Associates, as part of a threat assessment training initiative, the TxSSC is working with 20 school districts across Texas, one district per ESC region, to attend Basic and Advanced School Behavioral Threat Assessment trainings and to collect certain data elements specific to threat assessment team composition, assessment processes, and fidelity of implementation. The overall objective for this project is to increase school safety by: 1) training districts on best practices for conducting school threat assessments; and 2) establishing multidisciplinary threat assessment teams designed to identify potential threats and implement interventions to prevent or mitigate those threats.

Funding Source: Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) STOP School Violence Technology and Threat Assessment Solutions for Safer Schools Program, Award # 2019-YS-BX-0083 Funding Amount: $1 million Project Duration: 3 years, 2019–2022 Project Status: Complete

About this Project

The TxSSC aims to enhance our school threat assessment services by developing a comprehensive, model threat assessment training and technical assistance program. The TxSSC is working with 20 school districts across Texas, one district per ESC region, to collect certain data elements specific to threat assessment team composition, assessment processes, and fidelity of implementation. In collaboration with SIGMA Threat Management Associates and Safer Schools Together, this project will: 1) expand the TxSSC’s school behavioral threat assessment training model to include digital threat assessment and 2) ensure successful implementation of threat assessment programs in schools by providing an array of ongoing technical assistance.

Funding Source: Office of the Governor Criminal Justice Division (CJD) General Victim Assistance Program Funding Amount: $586,399 Project Duration: 1 year, 2019–2020 Project Status: Complete

About this Project

The TxSSC collaborated with the Center for Assessment, Research, and Educational Safety (CARES) at Sam Houston State University on a mixed-methods project assessing the ability and needs of Texas public schools, colleges, and universities to effectively respond to crisis situations. The project gathered information from a) public school superintendents, b) public school principals, c) a stratified, representative sample of school teachers, d) college/university presidents, e) college/university deans of students, f) a stratified, representative sample of college/university professors, g) school resource and university police officers, and h) K–12 and college/university counselors, constituting the most comprehensive educational needs assessment conducted in the state of Texas to date. Findings will inform statewide efforts to enhance the safety and security of educational environments.

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TxSSC

Research

Scholarly Research

Ongoing Projects

Operationalizing School Behavioral Threat Assessment (OSBTA): Enhancing a Statewide Violence Prevention Model through Targeted Technical Assistance

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An Examination of Guardians in Texas K-12 Public School Districts

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Enhancing School Safety and Violence Prevention through Youth Engagement

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Content Analysis of MOUs Between Texas Public K-12 School Districts and Local Law Enforcement Agencies

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COVID-19 After-Action Review with Public K-12 School Districts in Texas – Formative Research

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A Model of Motivation and Implementation of School Behavioral Threat Assessment (SBTA) Processes in Texas Schools Across Multiple School Personnel Roles

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Filling Preparedness Gaps: An Exploration of Security and Emergency Planning in Career and Technical Education Facilities in Texas Middle and High Schools

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An Evaluation of a Statewide Approach to the Prevention and Intervention of Violence using School Threat Assessment Teams

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Completed Projects

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Comprehensive, Research-Based Framework for Implementing School-Based Law Enforcement Programs

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A Statewide Approach to the Prevention and Intervention of Violence Using School Threat Assessment Teams

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Building and Supporting a Comprehensive, Model School Threat Assessment Program

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Texas Educators’ Needs Assessment Regarding School Safety and Victims Services: Improving the Safety of Texas Academic Institutions

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