Keeping Schools Safe? The Research on Behavioral Threat Assessments
The ongoing occurrence of school shootings and a documented rise in reported threats have led educators and policymakers to seek ways to prevent and respond to acts and threats of school-based violence. These tragic events are often followed by calls to physically harden schools by installing metal detectors and security guards. However, the evidence does not suggest that these strategies are generally effective in preventing violence. A substantial body of research suggests that schools need to attend to the psychological safety of students as the foundation for ensuring their physical safety. This is especially true given that more than 85% of school shootings have been perpetrated by current or former students who experienced negative home and school lives, and around 80% of school shooting perpetrators had experienced bullying within the school.
One approach that attempts to address both physical and psychological safety is the use of a behavioral threat assessment (BTA) system. These systems aim to identify, assess, and manage the threat of violence targeted at schools with the ultimate goal of intervening to prevent such violence. As of April 2024, 85% of schools across the United States reported having a threat assessment team, and, as of this publication, 45 states have established some form of a BTA policy.
BTA Systems in Schools
BTA systems are intended to respond to threats of violence from students by intervening with appropriate supports—including peer support programs, counseling, and mental health care—before issues escalate. BTA systems in schools were introduced by federal initiatives developed after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Since then, the primary BTA models that states have adopted or referenced in their legislation or policies are federal models from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and from the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC), the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) model, and the Salem-Keizer model. All models encourage a process to define what constitutes a serious threat, establish a multidisciplinary team, and guide how identified threats are handled. They also identify the need for training of threat assessment teams on procedures and highlight the need for all other adults, students, and parents to understand the threat reporting and assessment process.
The federal NTAC model recommends that schools first focus on building a safe and connected school climate to break down the “code of silence” that keeps students from seeking help for themselves or their peers. Evidence supports this: A 2008 NTAC study found that student bystanders who came forward with knowledge of a threat were influenced by positive relationships with one or more adults in the school. Similarly, the CSTAG model, which is the most studied framework, relies on extensive training; uses a flexible, nonpunitive approach that discourages the use of zero-tolerance policies and profiling; and demonstrates how to design and use mental health supports to resolve threatening behavior and intervene proactively to prevent violence. Similar to CSTAG, the Salem-Keizer guidelines provide steps for BTA teams to take, beginning with answering a series of questions to determine whether the threat is unfounded or necessitates further assessment and action. These guidelines also indicate that the BTA should be initiated by a school administrator and either a school counselor or a school resource officer (SRO) trained in the school’s process and protocol, then extended, if needed, to a broader, communitywide team.
Despite the guidance from these BTA models, there are many districts and schools that have adopted BTA practices but do not follow any of these specific models. Although BTAs are intended to diagnose and provide supports, they are used within school systems that are often accustomed to treating students who are viewed as problematic with exclusionary discipline tactics such as suspension, expulsion, or law enforcement action. Where BTAs have been introduced in settings with inadequate staff and training, these kinds of outcomes have been reported. As a result, concerns have been raised about the outcomes of poorly designed or enacted BTAs, which may target and potentially traumatize the most vulnerable students, including through the exclusion and criminalization of historically marginalized students. On the other hand, higher quality implementation of carefully designed and supported BTAs has been found to increase student supports and decrease levels of and disparities in disciplinary actions. With these concerns and questions, we examine the research evidence on BTAs being used in schools.
Existing Evidence on BTA Models
A growing body of literature describes school-based threat assessment practices and procedures. The large majority of studies to date have focused on one specific model—CSTAG—and were conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia (where the model originated). A small number of studies have focused on other specific BTA models.
Many implementation studies on BTA systems—in particular the CSTAG model—focus on schools that received training supports from expert trainers, which may not always be available to schools at scale. Findings suggest that BTA training can lead to changes in beliefs and knowledge, such as increased ability to accurately assess a threat, decreased support for zero-tolerance policies, and a better awareness of the goals of threat assessment. However, research also reports challenges around providing the necessary training needed in many schools.
Studies that examine the outcomes of BTAs on students, find that existing biases often influenced the rates of referrals for a threat assessment. Students of color—particularly Black students—and students with disabilities were far more likely than their peers to be referred for a threat assessment. However, studies also find evidence of fewer disciplinary infractions, suspensions, expulsions, and law enforcement actions in schools using the CSTAG model than in those using a general threat assessment approach, particularly for students of color and students with disabilities. Students in the schools using the CSTAG guidelines also reported less bullying, greater willingness to seek help, fairer discipline, lower levels of student aggressive behaviors, and more positive perceptions of school climate than students in comparison schools.
Two causal studies to date found that the use of CSTAG resulted in reductions in exclusionary disciplinary actions and bullying infractions and increases in counseling support, without disparities in who was referred for a threat assessment or who received a disciplinary action. Students who made threats of violence in schools that used the CSTAG model were significantly more likely to receive counseling services and a parent conference than students in control schools, while students in the control group were significantly more likely to receive a long-term suspension or be transferred to a different school. Among CSTAG schools, those with higher fidelity to the model showed the greatest reductions in long-term suspensions and increases in counseling provided.
Considerations and Concerns When Using School-Based BTA Systems
As in many educational programs, research finds a gap between the conceptualization of threat assessment systems and their implementation. As a consequence, educators and civil rights advocates have expressed concerns about whether threat assessment systems may profile and punish vulnerable groups of students rather than identify and help those needing support. These concerns must be considered as BTA systems become increasingly prevalent across the country. For BTA systems, which are now required in most states and districts, to be positive and protective of students and schools, the research suggests that several elements are key.
Consideration 1: Rooting BTAs Within a Positive School Climate
Successful violence prevention programs rely on creating safe and supportive schools that offer strong foundations of support for student mental health and well-being. Yet, while BTA models are built on this relationship, few state policies clearly make the connection between supporting a positive school climate and successfully deterring threats and acts of violence. Research demonstrates how positive relationships serve as a foundation for learning, mental health, and emotional wellness—particularly when students feel welcome and connected to their school communities—and help prevent physical violence and bullying. Although supportive, relationship-centered schools are the foundation for school safety, policymakers often treat physical safety measures and psychological safety measures as two separate entities. More must be done to ensure that any school violence prevention strategy—including BTAs—supports strong relationship-centered schools and integrated supports.
Consideration 2: Creating and Training BTA Teams Appropriately
Policies and procedures for BTA implementation vary widely across states and districts, leaving room for significant implementation issues to arise. Each of the major school BTA models clearly identifies the need for appropriate threat assessment training as a key component of high-quality implementation, yet a number of studies have found challenges with the state of BTA training in many schools, as well as concerns about the adequacy of staffing of these teams. Little is known about the composition of teams across schools and whether, for example, they include key staff members like counselors, mental health professionals, or special education teachers when the BTA involves a student with a disability.
Consideration 3: Designing BTA Systems to Problem Solve, Not Criminalize
For any school safety strategy to be effective, it needs to be implemented with fidelity and embedded within both a strong system of support for students and comprehensive efforts to prevent violence. The purpose of BTAs as a problem-solving, violence prevention tool—not as a means to exclude and criminalize students—also should be communicated clearly to the entire school community. While BTAs are intended to diagnose and provide supports, they may reinforce exclusionary practices when used within school systems that already rely on those practices. The inclusion of law enforcement at the earliest stages of a threat assessment raises concerns about potential negative impacts on students involved in the BTA process. More research is needed on the role of school resource officers or law enforcement in BTAs, and clear guidelines should be put in place for when and how it is appropriate to include them in the BTA process and with what prior training.
Consideration 4: Equipping Schools With Needed Counseling and Mental Health Supports
The existing evidence suggests that many schools may lack the appropriate mental health supports that are key to the BTA approach, especially access to mental health counselors and services. Nationally, schools have about half as many counselors and school psychologists as recommended by professional associations, with schools that serve more students of color and students from low-income families being the least likely to have adequate personnel supports in most states. Without proper implementation processes, appropriate team members, and links to supports, schools may be operating a hollow system that fails to understand why young people make threats and thus respond inappropriately when they do.
Consideration 5: Collecting and Reporting Useful BTA Data to Support Continuous Improvement
Early research indicates that BTA data, even when mandated by law, is not always collected in a consistent, sufficiently detailed manner. In total, only 7 of the 20 states mandating school BTAs require data on BTAs to be collected and reported, and even fewer require a full breadth of data (i.e., number of students referred for BTAs disaggregated by student demographic, number of threats deemed to be serious, actions and outcomes of BTAs). Moreover, no state mandates that those data be made publicly available. It is critical that data be reported accurately to understand how these systems actually work in schools, whether they are leading to greater or less safety in schools, if there are biases in implementation, and whether they are associated with more or fewer discipline disparities.
Conclusion
In an environment where resources, time, and capacity are in limited supply, states and school districts benefit when they invest in evidence-based strategies and research-backed supports that promote physically and psychologically safe school environments. Though evidence indicates that well-designed and well-implemented BTAs can be part of a successful violence prevention strategy, there is far more to learn about what will enable these conditions in schools.
We encourage policymakers to ensure schools are well equipped to provide high-quality training and intervention supports to students receiving BTAs, especially access to mental health professionals and services. Schools should also be supported in creating positive school climates, which are the backbone of BTAs and school safety strategies in general. And in order to have an accurate picture of how BTAs are being implemented and how they are affecting students, it is critical for data reporting and collection to be required and supported by states.
Keeping Schools Safe: The Impacts of Behavioral Threat Assessments on Student and School Safety by Jennifer L. DePaoli and Stacy B. Loewe is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.