Student Outcomes from the Pilot Test of a Comprehensive School Safety Framework for High Schools: Student Ownership,Accountability,and Responsibility for School Safety (SOARS)

Abstract

This paper has two purposes: First, we describe the components of the Student Ownership, Accountability, and Responsibility for School Safety (SOARS) framework in the context of the literature on school safety. Second, we offer outcomes from a pilot study testing the framework's impact on student perceptions of: (a) school belonging, (b) sense of personal safety, (c) level of disruption, (d) level of delinquency, (e) responsibility for school safety, (f) engagement in victimizing behavior, and (g) sense of being victimized by peers. We conducted a study with two conditions, intervention and control. The study was conducted in Oregon and Illinois. Four high schools participated in the study. Two high schools received access to the SOARS framework and two high schools served as controls. We collected usage data of the Advocatr app, the central components of the SOARS framework, as well as survey data from students. We examined Advocatr use by overall frequency as well as across student race and gender. Survey data were analyzed using an ANCOVA analytic approach. Almost all outcomes were in the desired direction. Intervention effects on student-reported school belonging, sense of personal safety, and level of disruption reached statistical significance. Effect sizes ranged from small to medium, with the largest effect in students’ perceptions of personal safety. We contextualize our study in the literature on school safety and describe the alignment of the SOARS components with existing recommendations for increasing students’ safety at school.

Keywords

school safety high schools reporting tools school climate peer victimization

Reports of lethal violence inflicted upon students on school grounds tend to shake us to the core and renew our commitment to ending school violence. Based on data collected between 2000−2001 and 2020−2021, Irwin et al. (2022) document an increase in school shootings over the last 5 years. The literature suggests that many students who engage in violent behavior at school felt bullied and victimized by others, often over extended periods of time (Hornor, 2018; León-Moreno et al., 2019), and shared their plans to take revenge against individuals, groups, or entire school communities with friends, school mates, or siblings prior to carrying them out (Langman, 2017; Leary et al., 2003; Kalish & Kimmel, 2010; Katsiyannis et al., 2018; Mears et al., 2017; National Threat Assessment Center, 2019; Newman & Fox, 2009; Vossekuil et al., 2004). The literature also suggests that students who knew about planned violence did not share this information with adults due to fear of punitive consequences from adults (Syvertson et al., 2009), fear of retaliation from peers (Allnock & Atkinson, 2019; Espelage et al., 2022; Slocum et al., 2017), lack of confidence in adults to respond appropriately (Aceves et al., 2010; Astor & Benbenishty, 2018; Stone & Isaacs, 2002; Wilson-Simmons et al., 2006), and misjudging the likelihood that shared plans will actually be carried out (Federal Commission on School Safety, 2018). Within this context, the purpose of our study was to conduct an initial test of how a recently developed comprehensive school safety framework for high schools impacted peer victimization, students’ use of a tool to share critical safety information with local school adults, and school personnel's efforts to create positive school environments where students feel comfortable sharing information. The school safety framework was derived from existing recommendations to keep schools safe.

Recommendations to Promote School Safety

Given the role of peer victimization as a predictor of school violence, students’ tendency to confide in others about planned violence, and confidants’ reluctance to share information with adults due to lack of trust in adult responses, fear of being labeled a snitch, or disbelief that the plan would actually be carried out, the following recommendations for preventing violent behavior at school have been issued. First, school staff are encouraged to promote a positive, non-punitive, and trusting school climate to decrease peer victimization before it escalates into violence (Astor & Benbenishty, 2018) as well as encourage all students—regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, or disability status—to share threats of violence of which they might be aware (Eugene et al., 2021; Vossekuil et al., 2004). Second, while encouraging students to share information about potential safety threats is deemed imperative (National Threat Assessment Center, 2019), more research is recommended to examine how reporting tools, such as state-wide tiplines or school-based reporting apps, function in authentic school settings and across students from various demographic backgrounds (Cornell et al., 2018; Planty et al., 2018). Finally, if a threat to school safety is identified, school adults need to be able to assess the severity of the threat and respond appropriately (Cornell et al., 2012; Fein et al., 2004).

Promoting a Positive School Climate

School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS). One approach to promoting a positive school climate is SWPBIS. The goal of SWPBIS is to create a school culture that rewards compliance with clearly defined and taught behavioral expectations and responds to violations of those expectations with a continuum of consequences. This is achieved by organizing school adults to be consistent and predictable in their responses to student behavior (Horner & Sugai, 2015). Successful implementation has been associated with reductions in overall disciplinary referrals (Bradshaw et al., 2008; 2009; 2015; Mass-Galloway et al., 2008). Unfortunately, SWPBIS has shown limited effectiveness in reducing racial/ethnic disparities in discipline outcomes (Bradshaw et al., 2009; Kauffman et al., 2008; Norera et al., 2014; Skiba, 2015; Vincent et al., 2011; Vincent & Tobin, 2011). In addition, much of the evidence base supporting SWPBIS is derived from elementary and middle schools (Bradshaw et al., 2010; Noltemeyer, et al., 2019). Implementation at the high school level has been found to be challenging due to adolescent students’ desire for autonomy and an emphasis on academic over social-emotional learning (Flannery et al., 2014).

Restorative practices (RP). More and more schools are looking towards RP to promote positive school climates and as an alternative to punitive discipline (Velez et al., 2020). RP focuses primarily on proactively teaching skills to build community and trusting relationships and to restore and rebuild relationships if students or school adults feel threatened or have been harmed (Amstutz, 2015; Wachtel & McCold, 2001). With this focus on relationship building and rebuilding through active listening, noticing the emotional impact behaviors have on oneself, acknowledging responsibility for the impact of one's behavior on others, and making amends (Amstutz, 2015), one goal of RP is to prevent removal of students from the classroom or the school due to disciplinary infractions (Teasley, 2014). Given its dialogic nature, student voice is a critical component of RP. Successful RP implementation actively engages students in noticing how they impact their environment and how their environment impacts them, and in communicating those impacts to school adults.

The evidence-base for RP is emerging. RP has been associated with overall decreases in exclusionary discipline (Weber & Vereenooghe, 2020), decreases in racial-ethnic disparities in discipline (Gregory et al., 2016; Kline, 2016; Vincent et al., 2016), and improved student-teacher and peer relationships which are fundamental to academic success (Gomez et al., 2021; Lodi et al., 2021). A randomized controlled trial has linked RP to decreases in exclusionary discipline and decreases in racial disparities in discipline (Augustine et al., 2018); another randomized controlled trial did not yield significant intervention effects, but associated students’ perceptions of RP with improved school climate and connectedness and reduced victimization through cyber-bullying (Acosta et al., 2019).

Providing Access to Reporting Tools

To encourage students to make their voices heard, and especially to share important safety information, many states and districts have invested in statewide tiplines, e.g., Safe2Tell (CO, established after the Columbine shooting), Okay2Say, (MI), SafeUT (UT), Fortify Florida (FL, established after the Parkland shooting), and SafeOregon (OR). Most tiplines provide a choice between anonymous or non-anonymous reporting. Studies of statewide tiplines revealed that over half of public middle and high schools in the U.S. use tiplines, though most (60%) have been in operation for less than three years (Planty et al., 2015). School principals surveyed about tiplines’ effectiveness felt that the tiplines were mostly effective, but that insufficient or untimely information made responding challenging (Hendrix et al., 2022; Planty et al., 2015). There is little information about usage patterns of tiplines across student demographic groups.

Adult Responses to Safety Threats

Adolescent students tend to be wary of adult responses to concerns they might share with school personnel. One approach for school adults to respond to identified threats is conducting a threat assessment (Cornell, 2014). A threat assessment is a proactive and targeted measure carried out by a local school team whose purpose is to differentiate between serious and non-serious threats and then diffuse those threats. Evidence associates threat assessments with reductions in suspensions and improved school climates across all grade levels (Cornell et al., 2012; Cornell, Sheras, Gregory, & Fan, 2009; Nekvasil, Cornell, & Huang, 2015). There is concern about the potential impact of implicit bias and stereotyping based on profiling students against the characteristics of past school shooters (Randazzo et al., 2006); however, evidence suggests that there are few racial disparities in the use of threat assessments (Cornell et al., 2018)

To build on the practices recommended in the literature and respond to the identified challenges, we developed a comprehensive school safety framework for high schools intended to (a) provide students with the opportunity to share critical safety information with local school adults in a format that would allow local staff to follow-up and act as necessary, (b) engage teachers and students with restorative practices to build and repair relationships, and (c) encourages students to take ownership of school safety through promoting a positive and inclusive school culture.

SOARS Framework Overview

SOARS is a student-centered and technology-driven framework designed to respond to what the literature identifies as contributors to school violence and potential remedies: First, peer victimization (i.e., bullying, harassment, social isolation) is a prominent predictor of violent behavior in schools, much of which is revenge-driven (Langman, 2017). Second, high school students tend to be more knowledgeable about peer victimization in their school than school adults (Bradshaw et al., 2007), and therefore represent an important source of information. Third, students are more likely to share information with school adults when the school offers a restorative non-punitive approach to discipline (Allnock & Atkinson, 2019; Slocum et al., 2017; Syvertson et al., 2009). The SOARS framework is designed to provide school adults with actionable data to prevent violence predictors from escalating into violent behaviors affecting individual students, groups, or entire school communities. The SOARS framework consists of four components.

The first and central component of the SOARS framework is Advocatr, a confidential reporting tool that is accessible via a mobile app or website. Only students with a username and password can sign in and use the tool. As such, information submitted is not anonymous, but confidential. Advocatr has the following functions: It allows students to report “Something Wrong” (e.g., bullying, harassment, vandalism, substance use, planned violence) as well as “Something Right” (e.g., kindness, generosity, helping others). Students can choose from a menu of behaviors as well as describe their perception of and experience with them.

Students are prompted to indicate who has been impacted by the behavior, when, where, and how long it has been occurring, and how they have been emotionally affected. Once a report is filed, they can also check its status, and determine whether a report has been received, is in review, or is closed. When a student submits a report, the school-based SOARS coordinator (e.g., counselor, assistant principal) receives an alert and accesses the information through the Advocatr website. The SOARS coordinator addresses the concern as soon as possible within the school's disciplinary policy, and—with the reporting student's consent—can also reach out to that student to address the concern in person or to gather more information to resolve the issue.

The second SOARS component is a 9-week Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum delivered by teachers and designed to support students’ use of Advocatr. The curriculum broadly focuses on the concept of kindness to build strong and protective relationships among students and the concept of repair to rebuild those relationships once they have been harmed by inappropriate behavior. Specifically, the curriculum emphasizes the impact of behavior on self and others, the risks and rewards of advocacy and self-advocacy, understanding physical and emotional safety, conflict resolution through showing accountability for one's own behavior, and taking ownership of school safety through participating in a school-wide safety campaign. Each instructional activity in the curriculum is linked to a brief video and a one-page Did You Know? document (available on the Advocatr website) that illustrate and summarize key information relevant to the target concept.

The third SOARS component consists of informational briefs for teachers and parents. Although our framework is student-centered, our intent was to inform adults who support and care for students about the research base on which the SOARS framework is built and its key concepts. The informational briefs focus on how student learning is impacted by physical and emotional safety, the value of advocacy and self-advocacy, and introduce readers to restorative approaches to conflict resolution. All briefs are located on the public access tabs of the Advocatr website.

The fourth SOARS component consists of resources for a student-led, school-wide safety campaign as encouraged in the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum. Safety campaign resources, including steps for planning, preparing, implementing, and evaluating a campaign, are available on the Advocatr website. Proposed campaign activities include generating data about how students experience their school environment, and addressing what students enjoy about school as well as any concerns they might have about their school's overall climate. The campaign's aim is to raise awareness of the Advocatr app, empower students to make their voices heard, and promote shared responsibility for the physical and emotional health and safety of all school community members.

The framework components were iteratively developed based on student feedback (Espelage et al., 2022), user acceptance testing, and field testing with a small number of classrooms (Vincent et al., 2022). At each phase in our development we refined the framework components based on study outcomes. We then conducted the current study to pilot test the entire framework, driven by the following research questions:

Do students use the Advocatr app to share information with school adults?

Does SOARS implementation result in

reductions in student perceptions of peer victimization?

improvements in student perceptions of school climate and safety?

increased student ownership of school safety?

Study Context

The pilot test of the SOARS framework took place in the 2019−2020 school year when schools closed in mid-March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All our participating schools, intervention as well as control, were affected by the school closure, and all participating students and teachers engaged in remote instruction after schools closed. All participating schools remained in the study and completed post data collection on schedule. Student response rates at the end of the year were likely affected by the school closure, which created significant stress for students and teachers.

Method

Design

We conducted a study with two conditions, intervention and control. Schools in the intervention condition received access to all framework components, while schools in the control condition conducted business as usual. We worked with a total of four high schools at two sites during the course of the entire project. Two of those schools (one at each site) participated in a feasibility test conducted in the 2018-2019 school year and were therefore familiar with the SOARS framework (Authors, 2022b). Because of their familiarity with the intervention, these two schools were not eligible to serve as controls and were assigned to the intervention condition in the current study. The remaining two schools were assigned to the control condition. There was no random assignment to condition.

Participants

Four high schools (two in Oregon, two in Illinois) participated. Table 1 provides an overview of the participating schools’ demographics. The two interventions schools had an overall enrollment of 1,394 and 1,210 students, while the two control schools had an overall enrollment of 1,267 and 1,424 students. Minority enrollment in the intervention schools was 43.8% and 65.5%, and in the control schools 24.9% and 55.8%. The percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch was 68% and 54.5% in the intervention schools, and 42% and 65% in the control schools. Following consenting procedures, all students from intervention and control schools were encouraged to complete the student survey. Table 2 provides demographics for student participants at pre and at post by condition. At pre, 2,334 students completed the survey: 1,458 in the intervention schools and 876 in the control schools. At post, 600 students completed the survey: 243 in the intervention schools and 357 in the control schools. Post data collection occurred after schools had closed due to the pandemic, which likely contributed to the low participation at post.

Table 1.

Participating School Demographics.

	Intervention schools		Control schools
	School A	School B	School C	School D
Overall enrollment	1394	1210	1267	1424
Minority enrollment	43.8%	65.5%	24.9%	55.8%
Free or reduced-priced lunch eligible	68%	54.5%	42%	65%

Table 2.

Student Demographics.

	Pre (N = 2334)		Post (N = 600)
	Control	Intervention	Control	Intervention
	(N = 876)	(N = 1458)	(N = 357)	(N = 243)
Gender Identity
Male	345 (39.4%)	669 (45.9%)	100 (28.0%)	75 (30.9%)
Female	467 (53.3%)	714 (49.0%)	248 (69.5%)	157 (64.6%)
Transgender	20 (2.3%)	40 (2.7%)	6 (1.7%)	5 (2.1%)
Race/Ethnicity
Hispanic or Latino	85 (9.7%)	305 (20.9%)	30 (8.4%)	34 (14.0%)
African American	183 (20.9%)	235 (16.1%)	86 (24.1%)	32 (13.2%)
Multiracial	113 (12.9%)	254 (17.4%)	43 (12.0%)	37 (15.2%)
Native American	72 (8.2%)	103 (7.1%)	22 (6.2%)	9 (3.7%)
Asian	31 (3.5%)	81 (5.6%)	9 (2.5%)	15 (6.2%)
White	511 (58.3%)	792 (54.3%)	227 (63.6%)	156 (64.2%)
Hawaiian/PI	20 (2.3%)	37 (2.5%)	6 (1.7%)	1 (0.4%)
Sexual Orientation
Gay	27 (3.1%)	40 (2.7%)	5 (1.4%)	4 (1.6%)
Bisexual	106 (12.1%)	198 (13.6%)	49 (13.7%)	48 (19.8%)
Lesbian	30 (3.4%)	32 (2.2%)	10 (2.8%)	7 (2.9%)
Questioning	54 (6.2%)	68 (4.7%)	20 (5.6%)	13 (5.3%)
Straight	621 (70.9%)	1048 (71.9%)	259 (72.5%)	159 (65.4%)
Grade
9th	229 (26.1%)	495 (34.0%)	140 (39.2%)	59 (24.3%)
10th	299 (34.1%)	374 (25.7%)	102 (28.6%)	89 (36.6%)
11th	142 (16.2%)	272 (18.7%)	66 (18.5%)	39 (16.0%)
12th	145 (16.6%)	257 (17.6%)	39 (10.9%)	45 (18.5%)

Procedures

In collaboration with the administrator of each school, we obtained passive parental consent and active student assent for students to gain access to the Advocatr app (intervention condition only) and to complete the student surveys (intervention and control condition). We recruited and consented 10 staff at each intervention school to engage students with the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum. Staff recruitment was driven by the school administrator who decided how to integrate the SOARS intervention with existing courses, policies, initiatives, and practices. In Oregon, participating staff included three classroom teachers, two PBIS coordinators, one dean of students, two campus monitors, one leadership advisor, and one in-school-suspension room supervisor. In Illinois, 10 English teachers participated. Each intervention school had a project-funded SOARS coordinator whose responsibility was to support the participating staff in their implementation of the curriculum and respond to student reports made via Advocatr.

To provide participating staff with ongoing support through the SOARS coordinator, project staff conducted a one-hour training with the site-based SOARS coordinators at the beginning of the school year. This training provided an introduction to the SOARS components, a review of how to monitor and respond to student reports made via Advocatr within the school's overall discipline policy, and a schedule for on-going check-ins with participating staff as well as project staff during the school year. Both intervention schools were supportive of a restorative approach to discipline and both SOARS coordinators were experienced in implementing restorative practices with students to respond to and defuse conflict (e.g., active listening, classroom circles, student conferences). The SOARS coordinators then interacted regularly with the participating school staff to monitor the curriculum implementation and with project personnel to address any questions or concerns related to implementation.

Classroom teachers presented the weekly lesson plans to students in their classes each semester. Non-classroom staff engaged students in conversation and discussions about the lesson content outside of instructional contexts (e.g., in leadership meetings, during in-school suspensions, after disciplinary incidents, during transition times) in each semester.

Prior to staff teaching the curriculum and students’ having access to Advocatr, we collected pre data. All students in both intervention and control schools whose parents did not opt them out of the study and who provided assent completed the Peer Experiences Questionnaire and the Safe School Survey (see below). After pre data were collected, all students in the intervention schools whose parents did not opt them out of the study were onboarded into Advocatr and received login information from the school-based SOARS coordinator. The participating staff in the intervention schools began implementing the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum and encouraged students to participate in the school-wide safety campaign. All participating staff were asked to complete an Implementation Checklist to assess the extent to which they implemented the curriculum. Students in the intervention schools planned and implemented the campaigns under the supervision of school staff. At the end of the school year, we collected post data from students in the intervention and control schools whose parents did not opt them out of the study and who provided assent. At that time, students participated in distance learning due to the pandemic-related school closures. Fewer students participated in distance learning than in in-person instruction, and therefore fewer than anticipated students completed the surveys at post.

Measures

Teachers and school personnel implementing the Everyday Restorative Practices Curriculum were asked to complete an Implementation Checklist. Classroom teachers were asked to document how many of the nine weekly lessons they completed, and non-classroom school personnel were asked to document how many of the curriculum topics they addressed with how many students per month in non-classroom settings.

Students were asked to complete the Peer Experiences Questionnaire and the Safe School Survey and were asked to create their own participant code following precise instructions. We used those student-generated codes to link pre and post data. The Peer Experiences Questionnaire (Vernberg, et al., 1999) consists of 18 items that assess students’ experiences as both victims and perpetrators of different types of anti-social behaviors at school (e.g., hitting, rumor spreading, intimidation, threats, social exclusion). Nine items assessed perpetration (e.g., student engaging in these behaviors towards peers) and nine items assess victimization (e.g., student experiencing these behaviors from peers). The Safe School Survey (Skiba, et al., 2006) consists of 42 items that assess student perceptions across four scales: [1] Personal Safety, [2] Incivility/Disruption, [3] Delinquency/Major Safety, and [4] Connection to chool/Positive School Climate. Students were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each statement. Response options ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) through 5 (Strongly Agree) on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Table 3 provides an overview of the internal reliability coefficients of the student measurement domains. At pretest, Cronbach's α ranged from .834 to .940, and posttest it ranged from .831 to .939.

Table 3.

Internal Reliability of Measurement Domains at Pre and Post.

	Pretest α	Posttest α	Items
Measurement Domain
Peer Victimization	.921	.875	9
Bully Perpetration	.932	.939	9
Connection	.940	.937	19
Delinquency	.887	.886	8
Disruption	.877	.877	7
Personal Safety	.834	.831	8
Promote School Safety	.854	.863	5

Data Analysis

We examined Advocatr use by overall frequency as well as across student race and gender. Survey data were analyzed using an ANCOVA analytic approach. The ANCOVA analysis examined differences in each outcome at post-test while controlling for differences between intervention and control groups at pre-test. While the main analysis used only participants who completed both pre- and post-test (n = 201 students), we conducted a series of sensitivity analyzes using Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) and a structural equation modeling approach using all data available. All models using FIML showed the same significant relationships as the ANCOVA design strengthening the validity of the findings. Partial Eta² effect sizes were reported for each outcome. Eta² of .14, .06, and .01 are considered large, medium, and small effect sizes (Cohen, 1988). We also examined variations in student outcomes across grade level, gender, and race/ethnicity.

Results

Implementation Fidelity

Of the ten school staff who implemented the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum in School A, eight taught all nine lessons or engaged students with all topics covered by the curriculum, one taught eight lessons, and one taught seven lessons in the first semester of the school year. Non-classroom staff engaged 25 to 270 students per month in discussions about the curriculum content. In the second semester, the classroom teachers taught three weekly lessons before schools closed; once remote instruction was in place, classroom teachers made all lesson materials available to students in their virtual classrooms and engaged students in discussions about the lesson content. Non-classroom staff used the curriculum content to keep students engaged with school and maintain relationships across physical distance. Non-classroom staff engaged ten to 100 students per month in discussions about the curriculum content.

In School B, of the ten teachers who implemented the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum, six taught all nine lessons or engaged students with all topics covered by the curriculum, three taught eight lessons, and one taught seven lessons across both semesters of the school year. Curriculum instructors engaged 120 to 150 students per month in discussion about the curriculum content. Additionally, all English teachers in the school taught an introductory lesson that covered how to use the app reaching approximately 1,000 to 1,100 students enrolled in the school across all grades. Once remote instruction commenced in the second semester, the ten classroom teachers continued teaching the curriculum lessons remotely and engaged students in discussions about the lesson content. Non-classroom staff were not part of the implementation in School B.

The implementation approach differed between the two schools, with School A engaging teaching as well as non-teaching staff and School B engaging teaching staff only. Teaching staff had the challenge to integrate the SOARS curriculum with their existing content area curriculum. Non-teaching staff seemed to utilize the SOARS curriculum to support their interactions with students, for example during follow-up to a discipline incident or during non-curricular activities. In the second semester of the school year, implementation fidelity was challenging due to the school closures and teachers and students having to pivot to remote instruction.

Advocatr Usage

Students’ use of Advocatr was likely also affected by the school closures beginning in March 2020, which removed students from the classroom and school environments and drastically changed the way they interacted with peers. Therefore, we report Advocatr usage data only for the fall semester of the 2019−2020 school year. In school A during the fall 2019 semester, 0.93% of students reported safety concerns (Something Wrong), and 3.09% of students reported positive behavior (Something Right). Overall, 4.03% of students used Advocatr. In school B, 0.91% of students reported safety concerns (Something Wrong) and 0.82% of students reported positive behavior (Something Right). Overall, 1.81% of students used Advocatr. Table 4 provides an overview of both intervention schools’ enrollment and Advocatr reports by race/ethnicity and gender. We disaggregated Advocatr reports into two racial/ethnic groups: those generated by White and those generated by non-White students to protect the confidentiality of participants in racial/ethnic groups consisting of few members. In School A, where White students comprised 56.2% of the overall enrollment, 50% of Something Wrong reports and 64.58% of Something Right reports were generated by White students. Non-White students comprised 43.7% of the overall enrollment with Hispanic students being the largest minority group. A total of 50% of Something Wrong reports and 35.41% of Something Right reports were generated by non-White students. In School B, where White students comprised 34.5% of the overall enrollment, 57.14% of Something Wrong reports and 58.33% of Something Right reports were generated by White students. Non-White students comprised 65.4% of the overall enrollment with Black students being the largest racial/ethnic group. A total of 42.86% of Something Wrong reports and 41.66% of Something Right reports were generated by non-White students. In school A, 51.7% of the enrollment was male, and 31.35% of Something Wrong reports and 47.92% of Something Right reports were generated by male students. A total of 47.9% of the enrollment was female, and 68.75% of Something Wrong reports and 52.08% of Something Right reports were generated by female students. In school B, 52.5% of the enrollment was male, and 35.71% of Something Wrong reports and 41.67% of Something Right reports were generated by male students. A total of 47.5% of the enrollment was female, and 64.29% of Something Wrong reports and 58.33% of Something Right reports were generated by female students.

Table 4.

Advocatr Usage Patterns Across Student Race/Ethnicity for the Intervention Schools.

School A	Percent Enrollment	Percent Something Wrong Reports	Percent Something Right Reports
White	56.2	50	64.58
Non-White	43.7	50	35.41
Male	51.7	31.35	47.92
Female	47.9	68.75	52.08
School B	Percent Enrollment	Percent Something Wrong Reports	Percent Something Right Reports
White	34.5	57.14	58.33
Non-White	65.4	42.86	41.66
Male	52.5	35.71	41.67
Female	47.5	64.29	58.33

Student-Perceptions of Peer Victimization, School Climate and Safety, and Ownership of School Safety

Students in the intervention schools reported less bullying perpetration at post (M = 1.18, SD = .48) compared to pre (M = 1.28, SD = .64), while students in the control school reported slightly more bullying perpetration at post (M = 1.26, SD = .53) compared to pre (M = 1.23, SD = .46). This change did not reach statistical significance (p = .144). Students in the intervention schools reported a larger decrease in victimization from pre (M = 1.31, SD = .48) to post (M = 1.23, SD = .45) than students in the control schools (M = 1.45, SD.61 and M = 1.43, SD = .64 respectively. This change also did not reach statistical significance (p = .052). At post, students in the intervention condition reported statistically significantly higher connection with students and staff in their schools (change of + .23, p = .009) and a statistically significantly higher sense of personal safety (change of + .15, p = .003) than those in the control condition (change of -.02). At post, students in the intervention schools reported statistically significantly lower levels of disruption (change of -.13, p = .021) than students in the control condition (change of + .02). Students in the intervention and control condition reported slightly higher levels of delinquency at post (M = 3.24, SD = .77 and M = 3.33, SD = .86, respectively) compared to pre (M = 3.21, SD = .81 and M = 3.28, SD = .87, respectively). Finally, students in the intervention schools reported increased commitment to promoting school safety at post compared to pre (change of + .09), while students in the control school reported decreased commitment (change of -.17). Effect sizes were small, with the largest effect size occurring in personal safety (partial Eta² = .043). Table 5 provides an overview of student outcomes.

Table 5.

Overview of Student Outcomes.

Measurement domain / condition	Pretest M (SD)	Posttest M (SD)	F test	p-value	n	Partial Eta²
Bully Perpetration			2.15	.144	191	.011
Intervention	1.28 (0.64)	1.18 (0.48)
Control	1.23 (0.46)	1.26 (0.53)
Peer Victimization			3.83	.052	192	.020
Intervention	1.31 (0.48)	1.23 (0.45)
Control	1.45 (0.61)	1.43 (0.64)
Connection			7.05	.009	200	.035
Intervention	3.45 (0.62)	3.68 (0.48)
Control	3.40 (0.63)	3.50 (0.62)
Delinquency			0.27	.605	200	.001
Intervention	3.21 (0.81)	3.24 (0.77)
Control	3.28 (0.87)	3.33 (0.86)
Disruption			6.45	.021	200	.032
Intervention	3.48 (0.73)	3.35 (0.68)
Control	3.63 (0.73)	3.65 (0.77)
Personal Safety			8.76	.003	200	.043
Intervention	3.75 (0.62)	3.90 (0.58)
Control	3.52 (0.72)	3.55 (0.69)
Promote School Safety			2.27	.134	197	.012
Intervention	2.97 (0.73)	3.06 (0.75)
Control	3.21 (0.63)	3.04 (0.69)

Note. Eta-square of.14,.06, and.01 are considered large, medium, small effect sizes, respectively (Cohen, 1988).

An analysis of student outcomes by grade level, gender, and race/ethnicity revealed no significant associations for any of the interactions between the intervention condition and demographic variables suggesting that the intervention effect on student outcomes did not vary across sociodemographic characteristics. Results of moderation analyses are presented in Table 6.

Table 6.

Moderation Analysis of Student Outcomes.

Measurement domain	Gender X Condition			Race X Condition			Hispanic X Condition			Grade X Condition
Measurement domain	F test	p-value	n	F test	p-value	n	F test	p-value	n	F test	p-value	n
Bully Perpetration	.19	.66	190	1.07	.38	188	.40	.67	189	.16	.92	189
Peer Victimization	.001	.98	191	.22	.97	189	1.57	.21	190	1.92	.13	190
Connection	.05	.82	194	.40	.88	192	.27	.76	193	.56	.64	193
Delinquency	.09	.76	194	1.48	.19	192	.32	.73	193	1.80	.15	193
Disruption	.66	.42	194	1.05	.40	192	.42	.66	193	1.71	.17	193
Personal Safety	.15	.70	194	.28	.95	192	2.80	.06	193	1.92	.128	193
Promote School Safety	.09	.77	193	1.27	.27	191	.07	.93	192	2.23	.09	192

Note. All models controlled for the outcome at pretest and included direct effects for moderators examined. Gender (1 = Male, 2 = Female); Race (1 = White, 2 = African American, 3 = Asian American, 4 = Native American, 5 = Hawaiian, 6 = Multiracial, 7 = prefer not to answer); Hispanic (0 = Non-Hispanic or Non-Latino, 1 = Hispanic or Latino, 2 = Prefer not to answer); Grade (1 = 9^th grade, 2 = 10^th grade, 3 = 11^th grade, 4 = 12^th grade).

School-Wide Safety Campaign

Students in the School A mounted a successful school-wide safety campaign focused on the importance of kindness and thus reflecting one of the core concepts of the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum. The “Growing Kindness” campaign supported use of the Advocatr Something Right reporting function and focused on norming prosocial behaviors through encouraging students to recognize peers for acts of kindness. Students created a kindness tree in the school's common area and encouraged students to write acts of kindness they witnessed on “kindness leaves” which were then posted on the tree. Each week, the leaves were entered into a drawing for small prizes. The campaign began in late February with the goal to reach 400 acts of kindness by the end of the year. When schools closed due to the pandemic one week prior to spring break, students had gathered 340 kindness leaves. Students also created a video describing the campaign, its rationale, and interviewing school staff about the importance of recognizing others’ acts of kindness.

In School B, the “Upstander” student group responded to something right reports made through the Advocatr app and delivered handwritten thank-you notes to students who were named by reporters. At the end of each month, they conducted a drawing for a gift card from the pool of something right reports, which was announced during morning announcements. Only the names of students that the reports were made about were revealed to the group; the names of something right reporters remained confidential.

Discussion

Our goal was to develop a comprehensive school safety framework responsive to the literature's recommendations for promoting school safety, namely (a) reducing peer victimization, (b) encouraging students to share safety threats they are aware of with adults, and (c) encouraging adult responses that promote trust and a non-retaliatory, restorative environment. Implementation of these recommendations reported in the literature identified students’ reluctance to avail themselves of tiplines and share information with adults and students’ distrust in adults’ responsiveness and fear of peer retaliation as major challenges. Our small-scale pilot test of the SOARS framework in authentic high school settings showed promising results for potentially addressing those challenges.

First, students made use of the Advocatr app to report safety concerns as well as positive behaviors. While overall usage rates were low, they seemed to be somewhat higher than usage rates of newly established statewide tiplines. In School A, .93% of students used the Advocatr to report Something Wrong in the fall of 2019. Based on publicly available reports, usage rates for statewide tiplines range from less than 0.2% of students for newly established tiplines to more than 2% of students for firmly established tiplines (Okay2Say, 2019; SafeOregon, 2019; Safe2Tell, 2019–2020). The overall usage rate of Advocatr might have been impacted by the fact that it allowed students to report positive as well as negative events. Students might be more interested in focusing on prosocial and positive events in their lives than threats to their safety. Merging those two functions in one tool might promote overall usage of the tool.

In School A, the percent of non-White students who used the Advocatr to report concerns was larger than the percent enrollment of those subgroups, while in school B, the percent of non-White students who used the Advocatr to report concerns was smaller than the percent enrollment of this subgroup. These differences are difficult to interpret. In School A, the largest minority group was Hispanic students, and in School B, Black students represented the largest racial/ethnic group. Dynamics between minority and majority groups, as well as levels of trust between racial groups and school personnel might impact students’ reporting patterns. In both schools, the percent of female students who used Advocatr to report concerns was larger than the percent of female enrollment, while the percent of male students who used Advocatr to report concerns was smaller than the percent of male enrollment. This might suggest that female students are more aware of concerns and more willing to share their concerns with school adults than male students. Similar patterns existed for Something Right reports. In both schools, the percent of Something Right reports generated by White students was larger than the percent of White students enrolled, while the percent of Something Right reports generated by non-White students was smaller than the percent of non-White students enrolled. This could suggest that non-White students are less aware of positive behaviors in their school environment or less willing to share positive behaviors they observed with school adults. In both schools, the percent of Something Right reports generated by female students was larger than the percent of female enrollment, while the percent of Something Right Report generated by male students was smaller than the percent of male enrollment. This might suggest that female students are more aware of prosocial behaviors and more willing to share their observations with school adults than male students. Overall reporting patterns might indicate that a reporting tool that keeps information local might be perceived as somewhat safer to use by students who are in the minority and perhaps vulnerable to peer victimization compared to a statewide tipline that forwards information to the state police.

Overall, however, Advocatr seemed underused. Although we embedded Advocatr in a curriculum that focused on student advocacy for self and others and restorative conflict resolution, and encouraged students to design their own school safety-campaigns, it seemed that Advocatr use was still hampered by a strong anti-snitching culture prevalent in the participating high schools (Authors, 2022a). During the development of the SOARS framework components, the authors conducted student focus groups to understand how high school students define snitching, what they perceive as the challenges to sharing information and the consequences of snitching, and when snitching is deemed acceptable and effective. Students defined snitching as reporting concerns to adults that students should have the efficacy to handle themselves. Students also described snitching as embedded within school and community cultures along with the perceived consequences of snitching. For example, snitches could be labelled by terms such as lame, untrustworthy, and outcast, and are at-risk for “endless” victimization both in-person and online. However, students in these focus groups agreed that the difference between snitching and reporting depends on the severity of the issue, confidentiality, and trusting relationships with adults.

Despite a strong anti-snitching culture potentially limiting student use of Advocatr, access to the Advocatr and exposure to the Everyday Restorative Practices curriculum was associated with desirable changes on the student survey measures. Almost all measurement domains showed changes in the desired direction for the intervention group. While not all changes reached statistical significance, they all indicated that students in the intervention group perceived themselves as less victimized, victimizing others less, more connected to school, personally safer at school, and less affected by incivility and disruption in the classroom. In short, they seemed to perceive their school environment as more supportive and themselves as having more positive relationships at the end of the study compared to students in the control group. Student perceptions of their school climate are one indicator of student alienation that might foster feelings of anger and revenge against others, which might escalate into violent behavior (Leon-Moreno et al., 2019). Reducing this alienation might be a first step towards reducing the likelihood of violent behavior against members of a school community.

Students in the intervention group also perceived a greater responsibility for promoting their school's safety compared to students in the control group. This suggests that providing adolescent students with a tool to make their voice heard and introducing them to the core concepts of advocacy and self-advocacy, physical and emotional safety, conflict resolution and accountability promotes their willingness to take ownership of their school's safety. Student buy-in and ownership of school safety is important to encourage adolescent students, who tend to desire autonomy from adults and independent decision-making, to share critical information with those adults they know and are willing to trust (Yeager et al., 2015; Vincent et al., 2022).

In both of our intervention schools, students successfully raised school-wide awareness of the SOARS framework through campaigns that focused on kindness and norming prosocial behavior. Students clearly felt that focusing on positive behaviors is more important that focusing on fear and anxiety.

While the observed changes in student perceptions of peer victimization were encouraging, they might be strengthened by greater engagement of students in curricular activities focused on building trust between adults and students and among peers, encouraging advocacy for self and others, and providing strategies for restorative conflict resolution. Implementation fidelity of the Everyday Restorative Practices student curriculum proved challenging. Given high schools’ focus on instruction in academic content and preparing students to meet graduation goals, finding the time to implement a curriculum focused on social-emotional skills can be problematic. Content area teachers tend to have little time to dedicate to instructional activities not directly related to their content area. Greater integration of social-emotional learning with content area curricula might be important to create relationships that build students’ resilience against peer victimization, to give students the skills to resolve conflict non-violently, and to promote trust in adults’ ability to help them negotiate threats of violence. Integrating social-emotional learning into non-curricular activities, such as social justice clubs or journalism clubs, might be easier. However, a focus on non-curricular activities might leave out many students who do not participate in those activities.

Limitations

Several limitations must be noted for this study. First, the school closures related to the COVID pandemic impacted several aspects of our study. Implementation fidelity decreased after schools closed because teachers had less on-line time with students and needed to focus on covering academic content during those remote classroom sessions. In addition, the sample size was limited between pre and post data collections due to school closures and other COVID related interruptions. The smaller sample size at post-test and the irregular circumstances associated with the pandemic could limit the generalizability of this study. However, to determine whether missing data influenced student outcomes we performed a series of sensitivity analysis using FIML and obtained similar results to the models with students who completed both time points. Also, because all schools were similarly affected by COVID school closures across intervention and control conditions and at both sites we suspect that this factor produced data missing at random and had a limited impact on the findings detected by this study.

Additionally, there were differences in the compositions of the school demographics between the intervention and control conditions which we were unable to control for due to the small sample of schools included in the study. However, each model did include a control variable for pre-test levels of the student outcome which potentially mitigates the differences in demographic characteristics between the intervention and control conditions. Additionally, we conducted a series of moderation analysis between gender, race/ethnicity, and grade and did not detect any significant interactions between the intervention condition and demographic characteristics (Table 6). These findings strengthen the main results of this study and suggest that demographic differences between the intervention and control conditions did not have an impact on student outcomes.

Finally, the small number of schools in our sample and lack of random assignment to condition precludes us from establishing causal relationships between the intervention and student outcomes. Our study is therefore largely descriptive.

Policy and Practice Implications

Reviewing approaches to school safety in the post-Columbine era, King and Bracy (2019) differentiate between visible and invisible as well as proactive and reactive security measures. They caution that many visible proactive security measures, such as increased police presence, surveillance, or active shooter drills, lack supportive evidence and have the potential to alienate students, criminalize non-violent behaviors, and stoke fear and anxiety. The SOARS framework offers an alternative that is focused on changing behavioral patterns and environmental factors that contribute to violent actions.

The SOARS framework components appear to align well with existing school safety recommendations, including ensuring easy access to reporting tools, reducing peer victimization that can escalate into violent behavior, promoting trusting relationships between students and school staff, and following up on students’ concerns, and creating a positive school culture (Federal Commission on School Safety, 2018; National Threat Assessment Center, 2019; Planty et al., 2018). The primary goal of the SOARS framework is to provide high school administrators with actionable data to prevent violence predictors from escalating to violent behaviors. Students’ intimate knowledge of peer victimization makes them an important source of information that often remains inaccessible to adults. Adolescent students’ distrust of authorities, including police, might make it less likely that students avail themselves of statewide tiplines commonly monitored by the state police, and perhaps more likely that they share information with local school personnel they know and trust. Creating trusting school climates that acknowledge student voice and encourage student participation in conflict resolution seems to be a critical component of encouraging students to share critical information that will allow school administrators to prevent violent behavior.

Students’ use of reporting apps such as Advocatr needs to be carefully balanced with school's cell phone policies. A ban of using cell phones in the classroom might results in delayed access to the reporting app. A hurtful event that students experience or witness might be quickly overshadowed by other events and remain unreported, even though it affected students’ sense of safety. How to balance instant access to a reporting tool with the disruptive nature of cell phone use needs to be further explored.

It seems to be important to embed reporting tools with efforts to create non-punitive and restorative classroom and school climates that are responsive to students’ concerns. Promoting students’ and school personnel's understanding of how behavior impacts self and others as well as accountability for one's behavior might promote trust among students as well as between students and school personnel. Providing professional training in restorative practices in conjunction with giving students access to a reporting tool might be useful.

Finally, it was encouraging to see that students availed themselves of the option to report prosocial behaviors. The high usage rates for “something right” reports might help build a positive school climate. This outcome should be of considerable value to school administrators in achieving the important goal of school safety. There are numerous obvious benefits to a positive school climate including a greater willingness by students to share critical safety information with school personnel.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Institute of Justice, (grant number 2015-MU-MU-K003). The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.

ORCID iD

Claudia G. Vincent

Author Biographies

Claudia G. Vincent, PhD, is a Research Associate in the Center for Equity Promotion at the University of Oregon. Her work focuses on developing and testing school-wide interventions that promote equity in discipline, academic outcomes, and physical and emotional safety for students from varying racial-ethnic backgrounds, genders, and abilities.

Hill Walker, PhD, is a professor emeritus in the U of O college of education. He has spent his career researching behavior problems and disorders in school settings. His research interests include universal behavioral screening, social skills assessment and intervention, longitudinal research, antisocial behavior patterns and school safety. He is the author of 20 books, two social skills curricula, and over 175 articles and book chapters.

Dorothy L. Espelage, PhD, William C. Friday Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has authored over 200 peer- reviewed articles, seven edited books, and 70 chapters on bullying, homophobic teasing, sexual harassment, dating violence, and gang violence. Her research focuses on translating empirical findings into prevention and intervention programming and she has secured over fourteen million dollars of external funding.

Alberto Valido is a research coordinator working for over two years with Dorothy Espelage in project SOARS and other government funded grants.

Christopher Murray, PhD, is a Professor of Special Education at the University of Oregon. His research interests include developing further understanding about how social relationships and social contexts influence the lives and outcomes of individuals exposed to high levels of stress.

Rita Svanks is research assistant in the Center for Equity Promotion at the University of Oregon, where she currently manages two projects related to safe and equitable schools. Her roles include functioning as liaison between researchers and school sites, coordinating assessments, and contributing to publications.

Brion Marquez is an educational media developer with extensive experience translating research-based concepts into usable applications.

Jordan Pennefather, PhD, is a Research Scientist and Methodologist at Trifoia. His research interests include school-based interventions, stress-reduction technologies, parent training programs, and measurement development and evaluation.

References

Aceves

M. J.

Hinshaw

S. P.

Mendoza-Denton

Page-Gould

. (2010). Seek help from teachers or fight back? Student perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts and responses to peer victimization. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(6), 658–669. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9441-9

Acosta

Chinman

Ebener

Malone

P. S.

Phillips

Wilks

. (2019). Evaluation of a whole-school change intervention: Findings from a two-year cluster-randomized trial of the restorative practices intervention. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(5), 876–890. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01013-2

Allnock

Atkinson

(2019). ‘Snitches get stitches’: School-specific barriers to victim disclosure and peer reporting of sexual harm committed by young people in school contexts. Child Abuse and Neglect, 89, 7–17.

Amstutz

L. S.

(2015). The little book of restorative discipline for schools: Teaching responsibility; creating caring climates. Simon and Schuster.

Astor

R. A.

Benbenishty

(2018). Bullying, school violence, and climate in evolving contexts: Culture, organization, and time. Oxford University Press, USA.

Augustine

C. H.

Engberg

Grimm

G. E.

Lee

Wang

E. L.

Christianson

Joseph

A. A

. (2018). Can restorative practices improve school climate and curb suspensions. In An evaluation of the impact of restorative practices in a mid-sized urban school district. Rand.

Bradshaw

C. P.

Koth

C. W.

Bevans

K. B.

Ialongo

Leaf

P. J

. (2008). The impact of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) on the organizational health of elementary schools. School Psychology Quarterly, 23(4), 462. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012883

Bradshaw

C. P.

Koth

C. W.

Thornton

L. A.

Leaf

P. J

. (2009). Altering school climate through school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports: Findings from a group-randomized effectiveness trial. Prevention Science, 10(2), 100. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-008-0114-9

Bradshaw

C. P.

Mitchell

M. M.

Leaf

P. J

. (2010). Examining the effects of schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports on student outcomes: Results from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial in elementary schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 12(3), 133–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300709334798

10.

Bradshaw

C. P.

Sawyer

A. L.

Brennan

L. M.

(2007). Bullying and peer victimization at school: Perceptual differences between students and school staff. School Psychology Review, 36(3), 361–382.

11.

Bradshaw

C. P.

Waasdorp

T. E.

Leaf

P. J

. (2015). Examining variation in the impact of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports: Findings from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(2), 546. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037630

12.

Cohen

(1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd Ed.). Erlbaum.

13.

Cornell

Maeng

Huang

Shukla

Konold

. (2018). Racial/ethnic parity in disciplinary consequences using student threat assessment. School Psychology Review, 47(2), 183–195. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2017-0030.V47-2

14.

Cornell

Sheras

Gregory

Fan

. (2009). A retrospective study of school safety conditions in high schools using the virginia threat assessment guidelines versus alternative approaches. School Psychology Quarterly, 24(2), 119. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016182

15.

Cornell

D. G

. (2014). Student threat assessment. Mental Health Practice in Today’s Schools: Issues and Interventions, 379–398.

16.

Cornell

D. G.

Allen

Fan

. (2012). A randomized controlled study of the virginia student threat assessment guidelines in kindergarten through grade 12. School Psychology Review, 41(1), 100–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/02796015.2012.12087378

17.

Eugene

D. R.

Crutchfield

Robinson

E. D

. (2021). An examination of peer victimization and internalizing problems through a racial equity lens: Does school connectedness matter? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(3), 1085. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18031085

18.

Espelage, D. L., Valido, A., Robinson, L. E., Ingram, k. M., El Sheikh, A., Woolweaver, A. M., Koritz, L., Vincent, C. G., Marquez, B., Walker, H. M., Svanks, R., Marmolejos, R. R., Medina, C., Meltsner, Z., Yalamanchi, K., & Pennefather, J. (2022). Snitching versus reporting: A qualitative analysis of barriers and facilitators to addressing safety concerns among high school students. Social Psychology of Education, 25(5), 1177–1203. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-022-09703-9

19.

Federal Commission on School Safety. (December, 2018). Final Report of the Federal Commission on School Safety. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

20.

Fein

R. A.

Vossekuil

Pollack

W. S.

Borum

Modzeleski

Reddy

(2004). Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates. Revised. US Department of Education.

21.

Flannery

K. B.

Fenning

Kato

M. M.

McIntosh

. (2014). Effects of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports and fidelity of implementation on problem behavior in high schools. School Psychology Quarterly, 29(2), 111. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000039

22.

Gomez

J. A.

Rucinski

C. L.

Higgins-D’Alessandro

. (2021). Promising pathways from school restorative practices to educational equity. Journal of Moral Education, 50(4), 452–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2020.1793742

23.

Gregory

Clawson

Davis

Gerewitz

. (2016). The promise of restorative practices to transform teacher-student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 325–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2014.929950

24.

Hendrix

J. A.

Planty

M. G.

Cutbush

. (2022). Leakage warning behaviors for mass school violence: An analysis of tips reported to a state school safety tip line. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 9(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000171

25.

Horner

R. H.

Sugai

. (2015). School-wide PBIS: An example of applied behavior analysis implemented at a scale of social importance. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 8(1), 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-015-0045-4

26.

Hornor

. (2018). Bullying: What the PNP needs to know. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 32(4), 399–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2018.02.001

27.

Irwin

Wang

Cui

Thompson

(2022). Report on indicators of school crime and safety: 2021. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2022-092/NCJ 304625), U.S. Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. https://nces. ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2022092

28.

Kalish

Kimmel

. (2010). Suicide by mass murder: Masculinity, aggrieved entitlement, and rampage school shootings. Health Sociology Review, 19(4), 451–464. https://doi.org/10.5172/hesr.2010.19.4.451

29.

Katsiyannis

Whitford

D. K.

Ennis

R. P

. (2018). Historical examination of United States intentional mass school shootings in the 20th and 21st centuries: Implications for students, schools, and society. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(8), 2562–2573. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1096-2

30.

Kauffman

J. M.

Conroy

Gardner

Oswald

. (2008). Cultural sensitivity in the application of behavioral principles in education. Education and Treatment of Children, 31(2), 239–262. https://doi.org/10.1353/etc.0.0019

31.

King

Bracy

N. L

. (2019). School security in the post-columbine era: Trends, consequences, and future directions. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 35(3), 274–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986219840188

32.

Kline

D. M. S

. (2016). Can restorative practices help to reduce disparities in school discipline data? A review of the literature. Multicultural Perspectives, 18(2), 97–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2016.1159099

33.

Langman

. (2017). A bio-psycho-social model of school shooters. Journal of Behavior Intervention Teams, 5, 27–34.

34.

Leary

M. R.

Kowalski

R. M.

Smith

Phillips

(2003). Teasing, rejection, and violence: Case studies of the school shootings. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 29(3), 202–214.

35.

León-Moreno

Martínez-Ferrer

Musitu-Ochoa

Moreno-Ruiz

(2019). Victimisation and school violence. The role of the motivation of revenge, avoidance, and benevolence in adolescents. Revista de Psicodidáctica (English ed.), 24(2), 88–94.

36.

Lodi

Perrella

Lepri

G. L.

Scarpa

M. L.

Patrizi

. (2021). Use of restorative justice and restorative practices at school: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1), 96. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010096

37.

Mass-Galloway

R. L.

Panyan

M. V.

Smith

C. R.

Wessendorf

. (2008). Systems change with school-wide positive behavior supports: Iowa’s work in progress. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 10(2), 129–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300707312545

38.

Mears

D. P.

Moon

M. M.

Thielo

A. J.

(2017). Columbine revisited: Myths and realities about the bullying-school shootings connection. Victims and Offenders, 12(6), 939–955.

39.

National Threat Assessment Center. (2019). Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

40.

Nekvasil

E. K.

Cornell

D. G.

Huang

F. L

. (2015). Prevalence and offense characteristics of multiple casualty homicides: Are schools at higher risk than other locations? Psychology of Violence, 5(3), 236. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038967

41.

Newman

Fox

. (2009). Repeat tragedy: Rampage shootings in American high school and college settings, 2002–2008. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(9), 1286–1308. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209332546

42.

Nocera

E. J.

Whitbread

K. M.

Nocera

G. P

. (2014). Impact of school-wide positive behavior supports on student behavior in the middle grades. RMLE Online, 37(8), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/19404476.2014.11462111

43.

Noltemeyer

Palmer

James

A. G.

Petrasek

. (2019). Disciplinary and achievement outcomes associated with school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports implementation level. School Psychology Review, 48(1), 81–87. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2017-0131.V48-1

44.

Okay2Say. (2019). Annual Report. https://www.michigan.gov/documents/ok2say/2019_LongLetter_AnnualReport_ADA2_689577_7.pdf

45.

Planty

Banks

Cutbush

Sherwood

(2018). School Tip Line Toolkit: A Blueprint for Implementation and Sustainability. RTI International.

46.

Randazzo

M. R.

Borum

Vossekuil

Fein

Modzeleski

Pollack

. (2006). Threat assessment in schools: Empirical support and comparison with other approaches. Handbook of School Violence and School Safety: From Research to Practice, 147–156.

47.

Safe2Tell. (2019–2020). Safe2Tell Annual Report. https://safe2tell.org/sites/default/files/u113/2019 2020%20Safe2Tell%20Annual%20Report.pdf

48.

SafeOregon. (2019). SafeOregon 2019–2020 Quarterly Data Report. https://www.safeoregon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/SafeOregon-Sept-2019-Nov-2019-Data-Report1.pdf

49.

Skiba

Simmons

A. B.

Peterson

Forde

(2006). The SRS safe schools survey: A broader perspective on school violence prevention. In Jimerson

S. R.

Furlong

(Eds.), Handbook of school violence and school safety: From research to practice (pp. 157–170). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

50.

Skiba

R. J.

(2015). Interventions to address racial/ethnic disparities in school discipline: Can systems reform be race-neutral?. In Race and social problems (pp. 107–124). Springer.

51.

Slocum

L. A.

Esbensen

F. A.

Taylor

T. J

. (2017). The code of silence in schools: An assessment of a socio-ecological model of youth’s willingness to report school misbehavior. Youth & Society, 49(2), 123–149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X14528958

52.

Stone

Isaacs

. (2002). Involving students in violence prevention: Anonymous reporting and the need to promote and protect confidences. NASSP Bulletin, 86(633), 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/019263650208663305

53.

Syvertson

Flanagan

Stout

(2009). Code of silence: Students’ perceptions of school climate and willingness to intervene in a peer’s dangerous plan. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 219–245. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0013246

54.

Teasley

M. L

. (2014). Shifting from zero tolerance to restorative justice in schools. Children & Schools, 36(3), 131–133. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdu016

55.

Velez

Hahn

Recchia

Wainryb

. (2020). Rethinking responses to youth rebellion: Recent growth and development of restorative practices in schools. Current Opinion In Psychology, 35, 36–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.02.011

56.

Vernberg

E. M.

Jacobs

A. K.

Hershberger

S. L

. (1999). Peer victimization and attitudes about violence during early adolescence. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 28(3), 386–395. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15374424jccp280311

57.

Vincent, C., Inglish, J., Girvan, E., Sprague, J. & McCabe, T. (2016). Integrating school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) and restorative discipline (RD). In Skiba, R., Mediratta, K., & Rausch, M.K. (Eds.), Inequality in school discipline: Research and practice to reduce disparities (pp. 115-134). Palgrave MacMillan.

58.

Vincent

C. G.

Swain-Bradway

Tobin

T. J.

(2011). Disciplinary referrals for culturally and linguistically diverse students with and without disabilities: Patterns resulting from school-wide positive behavior support. Special issue of Exceptionality, 19, 175–190.

59.

Vincent

C. G.

Tobin

T. J.

(2011). An examination of the relationship between implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) and exclusion of students from various ethnic backgrounds with and without disabilities. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 19, 217–232.

60.

Vincent, C. G., Walker, H., Espelage, D. L., Murray, C., Svanks, R., Pennefather, J., Valido, A., & Marquez, B. (2022). Initial field test of the SOARS (student ownership, accountability, and responsibility for school safety) framework for high schools. NASSP Bulletin, 106(2), 154-176. http://doi.org/10.1177/01926365221102378

61.

Vossekuil

Fein

R. A.

Reddy

Borum

Modzeleski

(2004). Final report and findings of the safe school initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in the US. Diane Publishing.

62.

Wachtel

McCold

. (2001). Restorative justice in everyday life. Restorative Justice And Civil Society, 114–129.

63.

Weber

Vereenooghe

. (2020). Reducing conflicts in school environments using restorative practices: A systematic review. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 1, 100009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2020.100009

64.

Wilson-Simmons

Dash

Tehranifar

O’donnell

Stueve

. (2006). What can student bystanders do to prevent school violence? Perceptions of students and school staff. Journal of School Violence, 5(1), 43–62. https://doi.org/10.1300/J202v05n01_04

65.

Yeager

D. S.

Fong

C. J.

Lee

H. Y.

Espelage

D. L

. (2015). Declines in efficacy of anti-bullying programs among older adolescents: Theory and a three-level meta-analysis. Journal Of Applied Developmental Psychology, 37, 36–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2014.11.005