School Shootings
In this article, the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health reviews what is known about school shootings, including data related to incidence and shooter profiles.
Summary and Recommendations
Despite the rise in mass school shootings, schools are still among the safest places in which children and youth spend time. Efforts to prevent school shootings demand further research and intervention on multiple fronts, including increased research on gun violence, both in and outside of schools. As a professional organization, DEBH joins with the Council for Exceptional Children and other divisions to support legislative initiatives that have the potential for reducing gun violence in and outside of schools, including the need for gun laws that require comprehensive background checks, bans on large-capacity magazines, locks preventing youth accessibility, and extreme risk protection that provides for gun removal in situations of threat of lethal violence.
As a professional organization, DEBH provides professional development and support for educators who work with youth with emotional and behavioral needs. While students with disabilities and those with mental health needs are no more likely to perpetrate school shootings than students without disabilities, there is a history of mental health needs among school shooters (NTAC, 2019). Furthermore, students with disabilities are more likely to be bullied in school, which is common in the profiles of school shooters (NTAC, 2019, 2021). These facts should not be used to further stigmatize students with mental health needs; instead, steps should be taken to provide universal supports to improve the mental health and social and emotional development of all students. Schools need to take preventative measures to equip students with necessary skills to improve their personal emotional regulation and coping mechanisms as well as interpersonal interactions with others. For example, schools across the country have begun to emphasize social–emotional learning to promote the development of these skills, which include strategies for resolving conflicts. Furthermore, school shootings and school violence cannot be viewed just as problems of school or law enforcement. They are shaped by various environments (family, community, neighborhood, societal) and entire life experiences and influences, both positive and negative. As such, we offer several key recommendations for schools.
Recommendations for Schools
To begin, schools must foster a culture of safety and trust so all members can learn and work. This involves taking proactive steps to facilitate the success of all learners. Research has clearly shown multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), such as school-wide positive behavior intervention and supports (McIntosh et al., 2010), have resulted in increased feelings of safety and more friendly and supportive work environments (Bradshaw et al., 2008; Horner et al., 2009). Multi-tiered systems of support frameworks involve clearly defining behavioral expectations for all learners and procedures for explicitly teaching, reinforcing, and monitoring those expectations. Expectations are monitored so students receive the appropriate level of support needed to facilitate their success. Multi-tiered systems of support frameworks Kern 123 also are characterized by procedures to create school climates that are positive, inviting, and collaborative. This is the first step for fostering safe and trusting school environments.
Within MTSS frameworks, systematic screening procedures for academic and behavioral risk are essential. We suggest schools also adopt mental health screeners that consider students with varying needs. For example, many costeffective screening tools glean information on students with both internalizing (e.g., anxiety, somatization, depression) and externalizing (e.g., aggression, disruption, negative attitude) behavior patterns (e.g., Student Risk Screening Scale–Internalizing and Externalizing; Lane et al., 2015). While most students with these behavior patterns never escalate to the point of school violence, it is important to support students at risk for mental health needs as early detection and subsequent intervention are essential for student success. Data suggest students with mental health needs are under-identified and under-served (Forness et al., 2012). Furthermore, research indicates relying on referral methods (e.g., office disciplinary referrals) is likely to miss students with internalizing problems (McIntosh et al., 2009). Using screening data to consider the needs of all students within a school is an essential practice that all schools should adopt.
Schools also must work to increase the availability and quality of mental health services offered within schools. The Biden administration prioritized addressing shortages of school psychologists, counselors, and social workers within both the fiscal year (FY) 2022 and FY 2023 federal budgets. Additional budget allocations were IDEA Part D personnel preparation grants to address special education teacher shortages; Project Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education, a federal initiative supporting mental health grants to increase access to school-based mental health services and support the use of traumainformed approaches; and Full-Service Community Schools grant programs designed to leverage school and community partnerships to better meet the needs of students and their families (NASP, 2022). Increased funding of these types is essential to helping schools identify and appropriately support those students in greatest need.
Given that threats occur in schools, DEBH supports the recommendations of professional organizations (e.g., NASP, 2022) and the U.S. Secret Service (NTAC, 2019) that schools should establish multidisciplinary teams and implement some form of formal threat assessment. We recognize that no mechanism can prevent all incidents of violence, but emerging data suggest threat assessment provides a research-based framework through which to analyze threats and mobilize responses. Studies have shown, for example, that schools using threat assessment implement a variety of responses to threats, including mental health supports and behavior support plans (e.g., Crepeau-Hobson & Leech, 2022); that exclusionary disciplinary responses are reduced when threat assessment is used (Maeng, Cornell, et al., 2020); and that students perceive discipline is more fair and that student aggressive behavior is reduced, while teachers also report feeling safer at school (Nekvasil, Cornell, & Huang, 2015).
We are also aware of concerns around threat assessment regarding the potential for disproportionate outcomes for students of color and for students with disabilities, although in both cases data are mixed. For example, while Ross et al. (2022) identified disparities in students who receive threat assessment across Black, Latinx, and Native American students, as well as those with disabilities, Cornell et al. (2018) found no discrepancies among Black, Hispanic, and White students in the outcomes of threat assessments, noting the strongest predictors of consequences were the student possessing a weapon and the team determining the threat was serious. Similarly, while et al. (2020) and Cornell et al. (2018) found higher odds of suspension for students with disabilities following threat assessments, et al. (2020) found rates were similar.
Thus, while we concur with professional recommendations that schools should implement some form of threat assessment, we strongly endorse continued research into the development and refinement of threat assessment models. This ongoing research should address ways to ensure teams are adequately trained in threat assessment protocols and threat assessments are implemented with fidelity, and in particular that threat assessment protocols maintain a focus on the potential for disproportionality in who receives a threat assessment, as well as the outcomes of threat assessment.
Recommendations for Research
- As schools work to implement positive and preventive approaches and increase supports for student’s social, emotional, and behavioral needs, more research is needed on the effectiveness of these and other practices, especially their specific impacts on decreasing violence and improving student outcomes. This will require ongoing research and evaluation efforts, which demand both funding and the development and support of collaborative partnerships between researchers and school personnel. Although not intended as a comprehensive list, the following seem to be key research priorities:
- The use of MTSS as a means of violence prevention: There is significant evidence of the benefits of tiered models of support on student and whole-school outcomes, but more research is needed on the specific impacts of these models on school violence. This might include further examination of the utility of dedicated mental health screeners in identifying and 124 Behavioral Disorders 49(2) supporting students who show specific risk, and assessing the outcomes of such supports on school violence.
- The use of threat assessment models for identifying students in need of targeted supports, as well as in averting potential acts of violence: While we endorse the use of threat assessment, DEBH believes there is reason to continue investigating the efficacy of threat assessment in preventing violent behavior, as well as how best to train school teams to implement protocols with fidelity, and to ensure disparities among racial groups and students with disabilities are avoided.
- The impact of SROs (armed and not armed) on school violence, as well as on broader issues of school climate and students’ sense of safety and well-being: This should include assessment of the ways SROs are trained and the functions they serve. (e.g., Can SROs be an effective component of positive, tiered models of support?)
- The use of leveled lockdown as a part of active shooter drills: Foremost, this should include the assessment of its effectiveness as a safety measure but also assessment of various strategies and components of such drills and their impacts on other outcomes (e.g., students and staffs’ sense of safety, anxiety, mental health, and well-being).
- The reasons for incongruence between current practice and research-supported recommendations: In some cases, available evidence does not support current practice (e.g., the increase in SROs in schools). Understanding why this occurs might inform movement toward more consistent evidence-based approaches to school safety.
- More and better research on school shootings and gun violence generally: We note federal funding on gun violence was limited for many years. As those specific restrictions have been essentially lifted, greater federal support for research on gun violence, both in and outside of schools, is sorely needed. This should cut across all of ideas noted in this article, including research on proactively addressing mental health issues, predicting and preventing specific school shootings, preparing students and schools for potential crises through appropriate drills and procedures, and supporting students, staff, families, and communities in the aftermath of a school shooting or indeed any act of extreme violence.