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A spate of school shootings in the U.S. has prompted policymakers to address the public's growing perception that our schools are unsafe. As education policymakers continue to press for additional security initiatives, it is important to understand the costs borne by school systems for these programs. Thus far, the scholarly literature is silent on this issue and the professional literature and mass media offer only anecdotal accounts. Using financial data from Texas and the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) School Survey on Crime and Safety, this study reveals how much districts spend on security, how they use those resources, and the extent to which spending differs across districts, thereby providing a comprehensive and more refined account of school security costs than is presently available.

Although educational policy makers are trying to involve more volunteers in schools, surprisingly little is known about the nature, scope, and efficacy of volunteer activities. For example, the literature offers policy makers only anecdotal answers to the following important questions: Who is volunteering in our schools? What do volunteers do? How do volunteers benefit schools? Are there costs associated with using volunteers? Are volunteers distributed equitably among schools? This article reports on a study that provides answers to these questions. Using multiple methods to analyze data from volunteers and administrators in New York elementary schools, this study shows, for example, that volunteers benefit schools in a number of important ways, including improving school-community relations. However, the study also reveals that high poverty schools have fewer volunteers than other schools. The policy implications of these and other findings are discussed.

The literature on the principalship is extensive, revealing ways in which principals can foster or impede school success. At the same time, another formal secondary school-level position, the department chair, has garnered little scholarly attention. Thus far, the literature offers a limited account of the roles that chairs should or do perform in schools. Our purpose here is to draw much-needed attention to the position by examining the relative level of importance that principals assign to various chair roles. Specifically, we report findings from a survey of New York State secondary school principals indicating that principals assign a high, though varied, level of importance to chair roles, some of which are associated with the structural characteristics of the position. We discuss the implications of this and other findings.