Implications Recommendations

Schools should focus on refining practices and sustaining programs, with ongoing support as needed to institutionalize best practices and build long-term capacity.

Despite these strong overarching messages, our survey results also identified opportunities for future focus.

Greater coherence and guidance are needed to ensure fidelity to evidence-based frameworks while allowing for local adaptation.

Addressing these disparities with additional funding and support is essential for effective violence prevention.

This inconsistency suggests that many BTAM programs are not yet fully integrated or institutionalized, highlighting the need for clearer tools and resources to support systematic and effective team operations.

Clearer guidance and best practices are needed to ensure that interventions are implemented effectively and fairly across schools.

Multiple robust feedback mechanisms are needed to ensure that programs achieve intended outcomes and continue to improve.

Findings from this nationally representative survey of K–12 principals underscore the remarkable progress schools have made in adopting BTAM programs, with near-universal implementation and a clear focus on addressing the most serious safety concerns through individualized, supportive interventions.

To fully realize the potential of BTAM as a cornerstone of school safety, schools and supporting agencies should prioritize the development and dissemination of evidence-based frameworks, standardized procedures, and robust training opportunities—while maintaining the flexibility needed to adapt to local contexts.

Strengthening continuous improvement processes and ensuring access to resources and training will be essential for institutionalizing best practices, enhancing program fidelity, and safeguarding the well-being of all students.

We hope the findings presented in this report will shed new light on how BTAM is being implemented in K–12 schools through a much-needed, deeper understanding of nationally representative trends.

We also hope that our findings provoke new ideas about how to better ensure the safety and well-being of individual students and entire school communities across the country.

These data suggest that schools can successfully implement a BTAM model with modest support—even when adapting it to local contexts.

As BTAM practices mature, broader adoption of consistent monitoring strategies may support greater effectiveness.

the policy challenge going forward is less about advancing adoption of BTAM as a component of schools safety efforts—the vast majority of schools already have done so—and more about how to improve existing programs.

Findings therefore suggest additional support may be needed to build institutional memory and leadership pipelines in high-poverty schools, where BTAM program stability may be more fragile.

Taken together, these data suggest that, though many schools are thinking about continuous improvement, too few are engaged in concrete activities to better understand how their BTAM teams are operating.

Providing more support to schools so that they can engage in more continuous improvement activities could help them achieve better school safety outcomes over time.

The survey sought to understand how BTAM is working on the ground at K–12 schools and revealed the following key bright spots:

Adoption of BTAM as part of school safety efforts—or the existence of an alternative BTAM-like team—has become a nearly ubiquitous practice across U.S. schools.

The rapid growth in schools’ use of BTAM and widespread adoption suggest that schools should shift their focus from BTAM adoption to implementation fidelity and refining practices to ensure consistent and effective implementation.

As schools move beyond establishing BTAM programs, ongoing support will be critical for institutionalizing best practices and building capacity for program sustainability.

As a result, new adopters of BTAM may need more help to support the continued function of their BTAM team and improve the program’s effectiveness and outcomes over time, as opposed to support from the local community to get a program off the ground.

Despite these strong overarching messages, our survey results also identified opportunities for future focus. In particular, principals identified five key continuing challenges:

In this sense, our results highlight the need for greater coherence in guiding schools toward evidence-based practices that are adaptable to local contexts but maintain fidelity to proven frameworks.

This inconsistency underscores the need for clearer tools and resources to help schools establish systematic and effective team operations.

Schools would benefit from clearer guidance and best practices to ensure that interventions are implemented effectively and fairly.

Without multiple robust mechanisms for gathering feedback and assessing outcomes across cases, schools risk missing opportunities to improve the effectiveness of their BTAM programs and ensure that both specific interventions and the program as a whole are yielding the intended impact.