the BTAM approach is designed to respond to a variety of behaviors of concern, not limited to explicit or direct threats.
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NTAC guidance for defining the types of behaviors that might be referred to a BTAM team includes objectively concerning behaviors, such as “threatening or engaging in violence, bringing a weapon to school, bullying or harassing others, and criminal behaviors” (NTAC, 2018, p. 4).
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NTAC guidance also identifies a constellation of “other concerning behavior” that may warrant an assessment and response by the BTAM team, including a variety of indicators of stress, inappropriate interest in violent topics (e.g., past school attackers, weapons), interpersonal conflicts, suicidality, or other concerns that might lead to a potential harmful outcome if not addressed.
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
Early identification of these behaviors can make schools’ efforts to intervene and support students more effective.
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
BTAM teams are not intended to be the primary vehicle for schools to respond to lower-level behavioral or mental health concerns, signals of change in a student’s well-being (e.g., depression, bullying, declining grades), or such routine school discipline issues as classroom disruption.
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In our survey, we explored how principals described the scope of their BTAM programs in terms of the types of incidents and behaviors that would be addressed by a BTAM team.
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
In this chapter, we focus on the subset of roughly 1,600 schools in our survey sample who reported having an official BTAM team at their school or alternative school-based team that functions similarly to a BTAM team.
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We asked principals, “What is the scope of the threatening or concerning behavior to which your school or district’s BTAM team responds?”
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
We listed eight examples of threatening or concerning behavior that a student might exhibit and asked principals to select which, if any, would be referred to their school’s BTAM team.
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
Sample (N = 1401) · Schools with an official BTAM team (Figure 4.1 official-team column; N printed in Table A.35)
Ninety-three percent of principals indicated that their official BTAM teams would respond to very serious threatening or concerning behavior, such as students who directed threats toward other students or school staff, and students who made threats of or may be intending to commit mass violence against the school or school community.
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Though such behaviors would appear to always fall within the remit of a BTAM team, state law or local policy sometimes requires schools to immediately involve law enforcement in some very serious situations.
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As a result, some of our respondents may have viewed such cases as outside the “jurisdiction” of their BTAM team and overall program because of their criminal nexus.
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Sample (N = 1401) · Schools with an official BTAM team (Figure 4.1 official-team column; N printed in Table A.35)
About 80 percent of principals responded that their
Why inferred The sentence crosses a page break: this quote is the page 38 part and the sentence continues on page 39 (claim p039-01). Full sentence (pages 38–39): “About 80 percent of principals responded that their schools’ BTAM teams would respond to other serious concerns, such as students at risk of self-harm or suicide or students with fixations on past school violence incidents or interest in violence or extremist movements.”
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
We also presented survey respondents with a set of behavioral scenarios and associated follow up questions to explore how they viewed the role of their BTAM teams in response to different types of incidents.
cite page 38 Ch 4: What Is the Scope of Schools' BTAM Programs?
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