Creating cultures and climates of safety is essential to the prevention of violence in schools. A safe and connected school climate includes:

  • An assessment of the school's emotional climate

  • An emphasis on the importance of listening

  • A strong but caring stance against the "code of silence"

  • Active work on changing the perception that talking to an adult about a student contemplating violence is "snitching"

  • Prevention of, and intervention in, bullying

  • Involvement of students in planning, creating, and sustaining a school culture of safety and respect

  • Efforts to ensure that every student can develop a trusting relationship with at least one adult at school

  • Mechanisms for developing and sustaining safe school climates

  • Physical environments that reflect zones of comfort and safety

  • Use of an integrated systems model


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Creating a Climate of Safety

The Guide encourages creating a climate of safety and respect (see Strategies, above) in the school environment. This is a climate that facilitates learning and breaking down "codes of silence" that hinder opportunities to help students in need. The Guide emphasizes that a trusting school environment—one in which each young person is connected to and has a relationship with a responsible, significant adult—can facilitate the identification of students of concern* and help prevent a tragedy.

*Identifying Students of Concern

The Guide provides valuable information on identifying students of concern. These are students who, based on a threat assessment inquiry and/or investigation, pose a possible threat of violence. The Guide differentiates between students who actually pose a threat of targeted school violence and those who make a threat. Using the findings of the Safe School Initiative, information that is collected, and 11 key questions from the Guide (see Questions, right), threat assessment teams will be better equipped to identify and assess students who are a threat to the safety of the school community, as well as to provide necessary services to those students.

What Can the Guide Do For You?

Threat assessment as a strategy continues to evolve, and the Threat Assessment Guide is a roadmap for beginning the process of integrating threat assessment into existing safe school plans. It suggests that each school community assess what it is already doing in the area of school safety. It then suggests that each school community:

  • Establish a threat assessment team (if one is not in place);
  • Make sure that the team is composed of individuals who have the ability and the authority to make decisions and respond to a targeted school violence situation; and
  • Proceed with identifying what is missing, what is needed, and what requires strengthening in the school's threat assessment plan.

Effective threat assessment brings key players together to make decisions that can decrease levels of fear and opportunities for tragedy that targeted school violence imposes on a school's students, staff, and community. The Guide is available online at www.ed.gov. It is also available through ED Pubs by calling 1-877-4ED-PUBS.

<continued on next page: Questions to Ask When Determining Whether to Take Action Against a Student of Concern>

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