Report page 91

In essence, a BTAM program that is leading to the increased use of exclusionary discipline or more student arrests is “doing BTAM wrong.”

Definitively answering questions about such outcomes and determining whether BTAM is achieving its dual goals of keeping schools safe while also using supportive intervention to change student behavior and reducing the need for suspension, expulsion, and criminal justice action requires hard data (on both student outcomes post-BTAM and what response would have looked like in the absence of a BTAM at school).

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).

Therefore, it is worthwhile to consider what our national-level survey data can say about whether schools are “doing BTAM right” as a complementary approach.

Results from our scenario analyses suggest that K–12 schools are generally using BTAM as intended.

Principals selected different intervention options based on the nature of the scenario (Figure 11.3)

As situations move from relatively low risk to much more serious, they selected very different responses (Figure 11.4).

Moreover, as the complexity of a situation and risk level rise, schools tend to respond with additional interventions (Figure 11.5).

Across the full spectrum of scenarios, however, each set of interventions consistently includes a strong support component (Figure 11.6).

Schools do rely on restrictive measures, but these are not their first choices (Figure 11.3); their use is correlated with the severity of the scenario (Figure 11.4).

with the darkness of shading showing the percentage of schools that indicated they would include a specific option in an intervention plan.

Grouped by intervention type, Figure 11.8 shows the heavy weight of parental involvement across situations and the situational relevance of target or victim support (because not all scenarios involved specifically identified targets of a threat).

The weight of supportive disciplinary approaches also indicates that this is a component of most responses, as would be expected for situations that could disrupt school functioning and make others feel unsafe.

However, the answer to the key question of whether schools are “doing BTAM right” appears in the previous two sections.

These simultaneously depict the importance of support-focused strategies as a component of almost all intervention plans (notably mental health counseling and care across many scenarios) and the relatively light weighting assigned to all restrictive intervention options with the exception of temporary school suspensions.

Although the balance between support-focused and restrictive interventions is encouraging, the number of scenarios in which at least some principals selected law enforcement involvement is likely cause for concern (Figure 11.7).

Naturally, how much criminal justice involvement is “too much” in any particular case is fundamentally a policy question and also must be determined individually on a case-by-case basis.

Although keeping students in school has substantial educational benefits and is likely more cost-effective than criminal justice involvement overall, some situations could be so serious that leaving student behavior management exclusively to the school would be impossible and inappropriate.

in some states, laws or regulations require schools to involve police when responding to specific incidents of student behavior (e.g., threats of violence or weapons).

For many of the schools included in our survey, police officers could become involved in responding to a subset of scenarios whether or not a BTAM team was in place.

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).