Report page 83

The function of a home visit and who performs that visit may differ across incident types.

For lower-risk incidents with limited indicators of potential violence and no concern about weapon access, parental consultation might be a phone call made by the principal.

In high-risk incidents with substantial concerns about violence, a home visit might be made by a law enforcement officer to assess whether the student has access to firearms or other weapons in the home.

Similarly, assessing the need for or starting mental health counseling and care was a top intervention choice for principals across most scenarios.

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).

Second, despite some commonalities in the most frequently chosen options, there is clear evidence that schools selected different intervention options based on the specific information presented in the scenario.

For example, in Scenario C (physical altercation, suspected substance use), principals report that they would respond in part by assessing the need for or starting substance use treatment.

In Scenario E (violence fixation, history of academic issues, withdrawal or depression, concerning home context), principals indicated they would assess the need for or start programming to help the student build relationships with trusted adults (for example, through regular check-ins or adult mentoring programs).

Broadly, these patterns suggest that schools are tailoring interventions and supports based on specific information about the student and the incident.

Scenario E: In a drawing assignment that asked students to visualize different ways to solve problems, a student draws a graphic picture of someone shooting at a group of people, including details like bleeding and other physical injuries.

The teacher mentions previous unsuccessful attempts to contact the student’s family about their academic progress, and that the student had recently appeared withdrawn and sad in class.

Third, schools appear to be focused on more supportive interventions, as opposed to restrictive measures, including exclusionary discipline, at least as the most frequently chosen steps in responding to incidents.

When principals did select the use of disciplinary measures in response to behavior included in a scenario, they opted for supportive discipline measures, such as in-school detentions and removing privileges—versus outright exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspension or expulsion.

Even for the most serious scenarios, referral to law enforcement and permanent removal from school did not make principals’ lists of top interventions (although principals did frequently select temporary removal from school for a few scenarios).

This finding does not indicate that schools are avoiding exclusionary discipline practices altogether; indeed, our results indicate that schools are still turning to such practices, some frequently (see more on this point below).

However, the patterns in Figure 11.3 suggest that exclusionary discipline and referral to law enforcement are not the most common way that schools address the behaviors and situations depicted across our scenarios.

We expected to observe the greatest divergence in responses across the least severe and most severe scenarios.

Comparing and contrasting how schools respond to the least and most severe incidents help illuminate how schools’ responses change as incidents become more serious and concerns about the safety of the student and school community also therefore increase.