Oregon Statewide Behavioral Safety (Threat) Assessment System Development

The BJA STOP Violence grant will allow the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to develop a national “Oregon Model” for student behavioral safety (threat) assessment (BSA) systems, which includes statewide implementation of the Salem-Keizer/Cascade Behavioral Threat Assessment System and the development of new equity-centered school culture and climate policies and practices in BSA. ODE will partner with RTI International for school safety systems evaluation research expertise and Willamette Education Service District for BSA training and systems implementation expertise. Through three grant-funded positions, the BJA project will provide targeted Salem-Keizer/Cascade Student Behavioral Threat Assessment training for school (Level 1) and community partner (Level 2) teams in 11 Education Service District (ESD) regions statewide. The BJA project will also provide “Oregon Model” implementation best practices guidance integrating emergency management systems. The BJA project will also develop, implement, and document transformative and restorative policies and practices in BSA, designed to integrate with whole school culture and climate transformative justice practices and prevent disproportionate impacts on students of color as well as historically and currently underserved students. 

In order to complete these goals, the BJA team will lead the management of a targeted training plan for 11 ESD regions, the development of statewide Communities of Practice and toolkits dedicated to BSA and Emergency Management Systems and BSA and School Culture and Climate, intensive transformative and restorative practices trainings for current regional School Safety and Prevention System (SSPS) Specialists, universal Oregon Model school and community team trainings, and a scalable statewide model for collecting data to evaluate and prevent disproportionate impacts of BSA processes on historically and currently underserved students.