School safety is a priority for school administrators and policy makers as they seek strategies to provide an environment conducive to learning. Beyond preventing crime, schools must contend with social disturbances that may not rise to the level of criminal activity, but can negatively affect students, teachers, and the school environment. One…

Little is known about principals' perceptions and their links to how school safety practices operate. Using data from School Survey on Crime and Safety from 2,009 public schools in the US, the current study examines the extent to which principals/administrators' perceptions of academic climate and crime risk are related to school practices…

Disciplinary incidents at U.S. public middle- and high-schools are a public policy concern. Although businesses popularly give credence to leaders' subjective intelligence, principals' reports of their schools' strengths and weaknesses are questioned. To determine whether principals' reports carry legitimacy as indicators of student offenses, the…

As demonstrated in extant research, there are significant distinctions across urban, suburban, and rural communities both in the experience of school violence and in the resources allocated toward safeguarding schools from violence. What remains unknown is how the relationship between weapons at school (i.e., possession of a weapon and attacks…

This study aimed to understand the extent to which parent involvement, community involvement, and schoolwide violence-prevention initiatives reduced school violence, considering school racial/ethnic compositions and crime levels of school locations. We used school-level data collected during the 2009-2010 school year, covering elementary schools…