Center for Safe and Secure Schools' Student, Teachers and Office Prevention (STOP) Program

Harris County Department of Education (HCDE)’s Center for Safe and Secure Schools (CSSS), located in Houston, Texas, in collaboration with Public Consulting Group (PCG) and WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center, requests $930,947 over three years to implement CSSS STOP program. The program will create robust, evidence-based behavioral threat assessment (BTA) programs in three school districts (Alief, Galena Park, and Sheldon ISDs) and one charter school (Étoile Academy Charter School System) in Harris County, Texas.

With a goal to operationalize threat assessment programs across the districts/schools, HCDE CSSS and its partners will implement the evidenced-based U. S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) BTA model. The Office of Justice Programs created the model based on findings from behavioral research on school shootings and is cited in federal guides as the current standard for school violence prevention. The NTAC model is comprehensive and outlines the following steps: 1) receive/screen threats; 2) gather information; 3) analyze information; 4) make an assessment; and 5) develop a trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate threat management plan.

Project activities include: 1) PCG implementing its BTA case management software (a technology solution), EDPlan™, a suite of tools and services that helps promote a plan for student success in the districts and schools. EDPlan Identify & Intervene™, a part of EDPlan™, will help districts manage academic and behavior interventions. 2) HCDE CSSS providing 3-hour training sessions for 48 district/school staff four times a year. The sessions are BTA Awareness and the need to manage practices, as well as restorative principles and trauma informed practices and how to use each one in a threat assessment environment. 3) WestEd providing a multi-phased approach to technical assistance to support districts/schools with covering the concepts and processes taught in the NTAC training into practical application.