Preventing School Violence

This project will provide the needed support to develop professional learning courses for School Resource Officers (SROs), Administrators, School Mental Health Professionals (SMHPs), and the general teaching staff and public around school safety. Specifically, we will convene a broad group of stakeholders representing all the professional organizations, the Arizona Department of Education, the Arizona Public Health Association, and others to participate in concept mapping sessions. These sessions will result in a course map that allows for both the differentiation of need by profession, but also importantly recognizes the value of a team-based approach to school safety. This is critical as there is not one single determinant to create physically and emotionally safe schools, with strategies to support school safety ranging from prevention to postvention. The professional learning courses will be built within the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers’ College at Arizona State University with the assistance of content experts including leading researchers in school safety, school climate, and school equity. Specifically, two 9-credit sequences (i.e., specializations) will be built for SROs and administrators that can be transitioned to credits for degrees. In addition, three 1–2-hour self-paced trainings will be built for SMHPs, and a series of 4 15-minute engaging, interactive learning tools built for teachers and the general public. A total of 100 professionals from each role (e.g., 300 total across SRO, administrator, and SMHP) will receive training throughout the project. Evaluation of the trainings will include assessment of pre-post, and 6-month follow-up of skills gain, changes in policy/practice, as well as sustainability. Given the backdrop of no current mandates for training for SROs in the state of Arizona as well as unfunded mandates regarding emotional safety (i.e., student mental health) this project is fulfilling a needed gap. Critically, utilizing the infrastructure of the largest university in the state will allow for this training to be sustainable.