Threat assessment has been widely endorsed as a school safety practice, but there is little research on its implementation. In 2013, Virginia became the first state to mandate student threat assessment in its public schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the statewide implementation of threat assessment and to identify how threat assessment teams distinguish serious from nonserious threats. The sample consisted of 1,865 threat assessment cases reported by 785 elementary, middle, and high schools. Students ranged from pre-K to Grade 12, including 74.4% male, 34.6% receiving special education services, 51.2% White, 30.2% Black, 6.8% Hispanic, and 2.7% Asian. Survey data were collected from school-based teams to measure student demographics, threat characteristics, and assessment results. Logistic regression indicated that threat assessment teams were more likely to identify a threat as serious if it was made by a student above the elementary grades (odds ratio 0.57; 95% lower and upper bound 0.42-0.78), a student receiving special education services (1.27; 1.00-1.60), involved battery (1.61; 1.20-2.15), homicide (1.40; 1.07-1.82), or weapon possession (4.41; 2.80-6.96), or targeted an administrator (3.55; 1.73-7.30). Student race and gender were not significantly associated with a serious threat determination. The odds ratio that a student would attempt to carry out a threat classified as serious was 12.48 (5.15-30.22). These results provide new information on the nature and prevalence of threats in schools using threat assessment that can guide further work to develop this emerging school safety practice. (PsycINFO Database Record

Many schools across North America have adopted student threat assessment as a violence prevention strategy. The Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines (VSTAG) is a threat assessment model that emphasizes distinguishing between substantive threats that are serious and transient threats that are not serious. This retrospective study investigated the interrater reliability and criterion-related validity of this distinction in a sample of 844 student threat cases from 339 Virginia public schools. To assess interreliability for the transient versus substantive distinction, research coders independently classified a subsample of 148 narratives, achieving classification agreement with schools of 70% (κ = .53). Logistic regression analyses examined transient and substantive threat differences in threat characteristics and outcomes. Threats were more likely to be classified as substantive when they included warning behaviors (e.g., history of violence, weapon use, leakage, etc.), were made by older students, mentioned the use of a bomb or a knife, and involved threats to harm self as well as others. Although only 2.5% of threats were attempted, substantive threats were 36 times more likely to be attempted than transient threats. Substantive threats were more likely to result in out-of-school suspension, change in school placement, and/or legal action. Overall, these findings supported the transient/substantive distinction, but indicated some training needs for school teams.

School sexual harassment (SH) is defined as unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that interferes with a student's ability to learn. There is an important need for schools to assess the prevalence of SH and its relation to school climate to guide intervention efforts. This study investigated 3 research questions: (a) Is there psychometric support for a 4-item multilevel measure of SH? (b) What is the prevalence of SH in a statewide high school sample, and how does SH vary across gender, grade level, race-ethnicity, and socioeconomic status? (c) Is an authoritative school climate-characterized by strict but fair discipline and supportive teacher-student relationships-associated with lower levels of SH for students? A statewide sample of high school students (N ϭ 62,679) completed a school climate survey that included a new 4-item measure of SH. Results of a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit for a single SH factor at both student and school levels. A multiway analysis of variance demonstrated the high prevalence of SH and variations across demographic groups. Multilevel hierarchical regression analyses indicated that an authoritative school climate accounted for 5.7% of the student-level variance and 38.3% of the school-level variance in SH scores. Routine assessment of SH can help school psychologists bring attention to this underrecognized problem. Impact and ImplicationsSexual harassment is an important national concern that has not been adequately recognized in high schools. Approximately 38% of high school students in a large statewide sample reported at least one incident of sexual harassment in the past year, with differences across gender, grade level, raceethnicity, and socioeconomic status. School psychologists can bring attention to the problem and advocate routine assessment of sexual harassment with a four-item scale. An authoritative school climate is associated with lower levels of sexual harassment.

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Separate lines of research find that proaggressive attitudes promote peer aggression and that bystanders play a pivotal role in deterring or facilitating bullying behavior. The current study hypothesized that proaggressive attitudes in middle school would deter students from standing up to bullying and encourage them to reinforce bullying behavior. Middle school students (n = 28,765) in 423 schools completed a statewide school climate survey that included an aggressive attitudes scale and their bystander response to a recent episode of bullying, which was categorized as upstanding, reinforcing, or passive. Multilevel logistic regressions indicated that higher aggressive attitudes were associated with less upstanding behavior at the school level and less upstanding behavior and more reinforcing behavior at the individual level, while controlling for other school and student demographic variables. These findings suggest that antibullying programs might address student attitudes toward aggression as a means of boosting positive bystander intervention. C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.