103 claims on pp. 4–160 (fact 3, statement 1, evidence 94, conclusion 1, conjecture 3, definition 1).
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296, § 305, as codified at 6 U.S.C. § 185) authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, to establish one or more federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) to provide independent analysis of homeland security issues.
Although several studies have sought to understand the impact of threat assessment programs on various school-level outcomes, including violence prevention, to date these reports have been specific to a single threat assessment model; confined to understanding trends in single states; or based on interviews or surveys of a small number of individuals.
Although it may seem that removing the student from school is the safest option, research has shown that exclusionary discipline, such as a suspension or an expulsion, can have lasting negative effects on students and may not effectively reduce risk.
SOURCE: Features data from the U.S. Department of Education’s School Survey on Crime and Safety (Burr et al., 2024) and its School Pulse Panel (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2025).
SSOCS = School Survey on Crime and Safety; SPP = School Pulse Panel.
The impetus for early adoption of the BTAM model dates back to the joint U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education’s Safe School Initiative, which examined 37 incidents of targeted school attacks between 1974 and 2000 following the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado (Vossekuil et al., 2004).
The initiative introduced BTAM as a violence prevention model for schools, emphasizing the importance of identifying students who display behavior that elicits safety concerns, assessing the behaviors and their context, and managing any potential risk of harm through interventions and supports.
It also stressed the importance of multidisciplinary teams to assess concerning behaviors and efforts to foster positive school climates that encourage reporting of concerns.
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
By the 2015–2016 school year (the earliest national estimate available), 42 percent of a national sample of K–12 public school principals reported having threat assessment teams (Diliberti et al., 2017).
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
By the 2021–2022 school year, 65 percent of public schools reported having such teams, in which threat assessment was defined as “a formalized process of identifying, assessing, and managing students who may pose a threat of targeted violence in schools” (Burr et al., 2024, p. 13).
During this time frame, the Secret Service continued to publish updated research on targeted school violence and guidance for the implementation of BTAM programs in K–12 schools (see, e.g., NTAC, 2018; NTAC, 2019; and NTAC, 2021), and there was increasing research into—and focus on—approaches for preventing violence in K–12 schools more broadly.
Despite clear growth in schools’ adoption of BTAM programs, more than 20 years after the publication of findings from the joint U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education report on the Safe School Initiative (Fein et al., 2002; Vossekuil et al., 2004), we still have little systematic data on what BTAM actually looks like in schools across the United States.
Although several studies have sought to understand the impact of threat assessment programs on various school-level outcomes, including violence prevention, these reports are (1) specific to a single threat assessment model, (2) confined to understanding trends in single states, or (3) based on interviews and surveys of small samples of individuals (see, e.g., Ross et al., 2022; Cornell et al., 2018; Crepeau-Hobson and Leech, 2022; Jackson and Viljoen, 2024).
Specifically, we drew on a systematic analysis of state-level laws and policies related to threat assessment completed by Child Trends and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) and published in 2021.
we drew on a systematic analysis of state-level laws and policies related to threat assessment and completed by Child Trends and NASBE
The Child Trends and NASBE analysis (2021) divided states into three categories: (1) states that mandated behavioral threat assessment in K–12 schools through legislation or specific state policy in 2019; (2) states that encouraged the implementation of behavioral threat assessment in K–12 schools or addressed it via non-codified policy in 2019; and (3) states that made no mention of behavioral threat assessment in 2019.
Note that the authors of this study were focused on threat assessment, which is a somewhat broader category than behavioral threat assessment and management as currently defined.
Federal data on school safety measures from the 2021–2022 school year also show that schools located in rural locales were less likely to have threat assessment teams, compared with schools located in city, suburban, and town locales (Burr et al., 2024).
During that school year, schools located in urban areas were also most likely to have threat assessment teams.
results from our nationally representative sample of principals who were asked to recall when their BTAM programs began largely to align with federal trend data presented in Figure 1.1.
Federal government data from the 2021–2022 school year paint a somewhat different picture, showing that high-poverty schools were actually more likely than low-poverty schools to have both diagnostic mental health assessment services and mental health treatment services (NCES, 2024).
The National Association of Behavior Intervention and Threat Assessment (NABITA), for example, specifies that training for BTAM teams should target a broad variety of competencies (e.g., risk and threat assessment), mental health and cultural awareness, bias mitigation, effective team communication, intervention strategies, and community engagement (NABITA, 2024).
we hypothesized that BTAM teams could structure their processes and deliberations in four overarching ways when assessing the seriousness of a particular student’s behavior or the potential risk of harm they posed.
This is somewhat surprising, given the rise of threats made against K–12 schools via social media (see, e.g., Moore et al., 2024).
BTAM models emphasize individualized responses and recommend a variety of intervention options, such as academic or social/emotional supportive services, monitoring, counseling, and safety planning tailored to the assessed needs of the individual and the situation at hand (see, e.g., Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 62 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
Unsurprisingly, more secondary schools have access to substance use treatment options than elementary schools, likely because the percentage of youth reporting they use any illicit substance increases with age (National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], 2023).
cite page 64 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
could be considered support-focused or supportive discipline interventions meant to modify student behavior (see, e.g., Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 64 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
BTAM in K–12 schools is framed as an alternative to exclusionary school discipline, which has been recognized as risking long-term harms to students and causing other damage to a school’s community (Huang and Cornell, 2021; Cornell et al., 2018; Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports, 2023).
cite page 66 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
Relative to other intervention options, substance use treatment is also likely especially costly for students and their families (see, e.g., NIDA, 2024).
cite page 68 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
Federal government data for the 2023–2024 school year show that 84 percent of public schools provided mental health interventions for students, and 63 percent of schools used district or school funding to support these mental health services.
cite page 68 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
However, only 9 percent of schools “strongly agree” that they are able to effectively provide these services for all students in need (NCES, 2025).
cite page 68 Ch 9: How Do BTAM Teams Develop Intervention Plans?
Interventions are grouped into categories based on Jackson et al., 2025.
cite page 81 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
This is somewhat unsurprising given heightened rates of depression and anxiety among youth following the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated rise in students seeking mental health services (Mahnken, 2023).
cite page 83 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
Layering multiple interventions (mental health, academic, and behavioral supports) is consistent with behavioral threat management best practice (Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 87 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
this is somewhat in line with findings from previous studies of behavioral threat management in schools, which suggest that many schools implement short-term suspensions as an immediate response to some student behavior to give their BTAM team time to complete a behavioral threat assessment and decide on appropriate longer-term interventions, including support-focused interventions (Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 89 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
Although other studies show that most K–12 principals do not believe that exclusionary discipline measures teach students valuable lessons and help avoid future behavior incidents, 12 percent nationally still do believe that suspensions and expulsions give students the opportunity to learn from their behavior (Perera and Diliberti, 2023).
cite page 89 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
Although some studies have conducted such analyses, the fact that data across schools and across the country are difficult to collect means existing analyses have usually focused more narrowly: either on single states or on the implementation of single BTAM models (e.g., Cornell, Allen, and Fan, 2012; Maeng, Cornell, and Huang, 2020; Cornell et al., 2025).
cite page 91 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
many schools employ temporary suspension as an immediate response to an incident to ensure the safety of the individual student and broader school community, while a BTAM team conducts its threat assessment and determines the best path forward (Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 91 Ch 11: How Are Schools Using BTAM to Respond to Student Behavior?
The widespread adoption of BTAM at schools across the United States has raised concerns about its impact and perceived impact on a variety of school-specific outcomes, such as safety, crime, fairness of school discipline across all students, and school climate more broadly (see, e.g., Cornell et al., 2025; Cornell, 2020; Nekvasil and Cornell, 2015).
cite page 94 Ch 12: What Do Principals Think Are the Effects of Their BTAM Programs?
Studies of program implementation in many areas have identified many risks to program sustainment, including resource constraints that force the closure of good programs; “drifting” away from careful program delivery so that over time a program morphs into something different than originally intended; and staff turnover or changes in leadership that remove the program’s “champion,” meaning no one is there to ensure continued quality and performance (see Lane et al., 2019, for a review).
cite page 100 Ch 13: Sustaining and Improving BTAM Programs over Time
The question was informed by other studies on program sustainability and on BTAM program implementation specifically that drew on the expertise of school safety staff across the country who indicated that a dynamic and supportive school leader was often important for school BTAM program effectiveness (see, e.g., Jackson et al., 2025).
cite page 101 Ch 13: Sustaining and Improving BTAM Programs over Time
This is notable because high-poverty schools have historically had higher levels of staff turnover, compared with lower-poverty schools (Education Resource Strategies [ERS], 2025; Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2019).
cite page 101 Ch 13: Sustaining and Improving BTAM Programs over Time
since the 2019 study that provides the basis for the grouping of the states, some of those states—including Georgia and Michigan—have gone from strong encouragement of BTAM through policy or regulation to enacting laws covering school BTAM adoption) (Child Trends and the NASBE, 2021).
cite page 103 Ch 13: Sustaining and Improving BTAM Programs over Time
As our methodology for collecting and analyzing survey data remains relatively consistent across ASLP surveys, the description of our methods below is updated from a previous publication analyzing results from another ASLP survey focused on school safety (Jackson et al., 2023).
SOURCE: Features data compiled in 2019 by Child Trends and NASBE (2021).
American Association for Public Opinion Research, Standard Definition: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys, 2023.
Blad, Evie, “A State Mandated School Threat Assessment. Here’s What It Meant for Students,”
Bohanon, Hank, Lisa Caputo Love, and Kelly Morrissey, Implementing Systematic Interventions: A Guide for Secondary School Teams, Routledge, 2020.
Burr, Riley, Jana Kemp, Ke Wang, and Deanne Swan, Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings from the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2021–2022, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2024-043, January 2024.
Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond, Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It, Learning Policy Institute, August 2017.
Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports, Instructional and Restorative Alternatives to Exclusionary Discipline: A Guide to Implementing the Five Components of the Inclusive Skill-Building Learning Approach (ISLA), July 2023.
Child Trends and NASBE—See Child Trends and National Association of State Boards of Education.
Child Trends and National Association of State Boards of Education, “State Policies That Support Healthy Schools,”
Cook, Clayton R., Aaron R. Lyon, Jill Locke, Thomas Waltz, and Byron J. Powell, “Adapting a Compilation of Implementation Strategies to Advance School-Based Implementation Research and Practice,”
Cornell, Dewey G., “Threat Assessment as a School Violence Prevention Strategy,”
Cornell, Dewey G., Korrie Allen, and Xitao Fan, “A Randomized Controlled Study of the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines in Kindergarten Through Grade 12,”
Cornell, Dewey, Jennifer L. Maeng, Anna Grace Burnette, Yuane Jia, Francis Huang, Timothy Konold, Pooja Datta, Marisa Malone, and Patrick Meyer, “Student Threat Assessment as a Standard School Safety Practice: Results from a Statewide Implementation Study,”
Cornell, Dewey G., Jennifer Maeng, Sonja Winter, Francis Huang, Tim G. Konold, Jordan Kerere, Kelvin Afolabi, and Deanne Cowley, “Behavioral Threat Assessment and Equity in Exclusionary School Discipline,”
Crepeau-Hobson, Franci, and Nancy Leech, “Disciplinary and Nondisciplinary Outcomes of School-Based Threat Assessment in Colorado Schools,”
Diliberti, Melissa, Michael Jackson, Jana Kemp, and Rachel Hansen, Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings from the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2015–16, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES 2017-122, July 2017.
Education Resource Strategies, “Examining School-Level Teacher Turnover Trends (2021–2024): A New Angle on a Pervasive Issue,”
Fein, Robert A., Bryan Vossekuil, William S. Pollack, Randy Borum, William Modzeleski, and Marisa Reddy, Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education, May 2002.
Florida Department of Education, Florida Harm Prevention and Threat Management Manual, Florida Administrative Code 6A-1.0019, August 19, 2025.
Higgins, Lori, “Whitmer Signs School Safety Legislation into Law,”
Huang, Francis L., and Dewey G. Cornell, “Teacher Support for Zero Tolerance Is Associated with Higher Suspension Rates and Lower Feelings of Safety,”
Jackson, Brian A., Melissa Kay Diliberti, Pauline Moore, and Heather L. Schwartz, Teachers’ Views on School Safety: Consensus on Many Security Measures, but Stark Division About Arming Teachers, RAND Corporation, RR-A2641-1, 2023. As of August 10, 2025:
Jackson, Brian A., Pauline Moore, Jennifer T. Leschitz, Benjamin Boudreaux, Jo Caulkins, and Shoshana R. Shelton, Strengthening School Violence Prevention: Expanding Intervention Options and Supporting K–12 School Efforts in Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management, Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, RR-A2966-1, 2025. As of August 10, 2025:
Jackson, Jourdan R., and Jodi L. Viljoen, “Preventing School Violence A Review of School Threat Assessment Models,”
Jackson, Jourdan R., and Jodi L. Viljoen, “Preventing School Violence: A Survey of School Threat Assessment Practices, Perceived Impact, and Challenges,”
Lane, Kathleen Lynne, Holly Mariah Menzies, Wendy Peia Oakes, and Jemma Robertson Kalberg, Developing a Schoolwide Framework to Prevent and Manage Learning and Behavior Problems, 2nd ed., Guilford Press, 2019.
Maeng, Jennifer L., Dewey Cornell, and Francis Huang, “Student Threat Assessment as an Alternative to Exclusionary Discipline,”
Mahnken, Kevin, “COVID’s ‘Complicated Picture:’ Mental Health Worse, Staffing Tight, Enrollment Frozen at Nation’s Schools,”
Maryland Center for School Safety, “Behavioral Threat Assessment (BTA),”
McKenna, Joseph M., and Shawna R. White, “Examining the Use of Police in Schools: How Roles May Impact Responses to Student Misconduct,”
MCSS—See Maryland Center for School Safety.
Meiners, Erica R., “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline/Building Abolition Futures,”
Moore, Pauline, Brian A. Jackson, Jennifer T. Leschitz, Nazia Wolters, Thomas Goode, Melissa Kay Diliberti, and Phoebe Felicia Pham, Developing Practical Responses to Social Media Threats Against K–12 Schools: An Overview of Trends, Challenges, and Current Approaches, Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, RR-A1077-5, 2024. As of August 10, 2025:
NABITA—See National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment.
National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment, NABITA Standards for School-Based Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management in K–12 Education, white paper, 2024.
Sample (no n: a percentage change, not a share of a sample) · a percentage that is not a share of a sample (e.g. a percentage-point change or a weighted estimate of the population)
National Center for Education Statistics, “More Than 80 Percent of U.S. Public Schools Report Pandemic Has Negatively Impacted Student Behavior and Socio-Emotional Development,”
National Center for Education Statistics, “Prevalence of Mental Health Services Provided by Public Schools and Limitations in Schools’ Efforts to Provide Mental Health Services,”
National Center for Education Statistics, “School Pulse Panel: Surveying High-Priority, Education-Related Topics: Interactive Results,”
National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments, “Texas School Discipline Laws & Regulations: Threat Assessment Protocols,”
National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Reported Drug Use Among Adolescents Continued to Hold Below Pre-Pandemic Levels in 2023,”
National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Residential Addiction Treatment for Adolescents Is Scarce and Expensive,”
National Threat Assessment Center, Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Prevention Targeted School Violence, U.S. Secret Service, 2018.
National Threat Assessment Center, Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence, U.S. Secret Service, 2019.
National Threat Assessment Center, Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools, U.S. Secret Service, 2021.
National Threat Assessment Center, “What Is a Behavioral Threat Assessment in School?”
NCES—See National Center for Education Statistics.
Nekvasil, Erin K., and Dewey G. Cornell, “Student Threat Assessment Associated with Safety in Middle Schools,”
NIDA—See National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NTAC—See National Threat Assessment Center.
Peetz, Caitlynn, “Is Student Behavior Getting Any Better? What a New Survey Says,”
Perera, Rachel, and Melissa Kay Diliberti, “Survey: What Purpose to Suspensions Serve? Principals Don’t Seem Quite Sure,”
Ross, Dorie, Nathaniel von der Embse, Jessica L. Andrews, Mollie McCullough Headley, and Caroline Mierzwa, “A Systematic Review of Threat Assessment in K–12 Schools: Adult and Child Outcomes,”
State of South Carolina, Department of Education, School-Based Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management: Best Practices Guide for South Carolina K–12 Schools, 2nd ed., October 2023.
Texas School Safety Center, “School Behavioral Threat Assessment Toolkit: 2.0 Legal Requirements and Guidelines,”
Theriot, Matthew T., “School Resource Officers and the Criminalization of Student Behavior,”
Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, Threat Assessment and Management in Virginia Public Schools: Model Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines, 5th ed., Commonwealth of Virginia, July 2023.
Vossekuil, Bryan, Robert A. Fein, Marisa Reddy, Randy Borum, and William Modzelski, The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education, July 2004.
WFTS Webteam, “Florida Senate Passes Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act,”
Wisconsin Department of Justice Office of School Safety, Wisconsin School Threat Assessment and Management Protocol (WSTAMP-R 24): A Guide for Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment Teams, April 2025.
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