Is the Threat Threatening? - Contextualizing Threat Assessments in Texas Schools

Addressing harmful, threatening, or violent behavior in Texas schools under a threat assessment model became the statewide expectation following the enactment of Senate Bill 11 (SB 11) in June 2019. An innovative approach to managing threatening behavior was necessitated by a series of tragic mass shootings in 2018 that set the landscape around conversations of school safety at the time. Here, I am specifically referring to the untimely deaths at high schools in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas. These losses were felt around the world. Tragedies as these undoubtedly produce passionate and impulsive recommendations regarding how to enhance school safety. Unfortunately, some of these propositions continue to offer more strict, punitive, and armored school practices that leave certain groups of students more vulnerable than others. These punitive methods often curtail meaningful school safety measures on campuses. However, the standardization of the threat assessment model presents Texas schools with a unique opportunity to productively manage threats while simultaneously moving away from a history of ineffective disciplinary practices. It is also in the spirit of threat assessments to provide students with necessary support services that have never seemed more relevant than now, in the context of a global pandemic.

What are Threat Assessments?

As detailed by SB 11 and the Texas Education Code (Sec. 37.115), the threat assessment model starts with pairing a school district with a Safe and Supportive School Team constructed from individuals across a wide array of disciplines, including educators, administrators, counselors, and law enforcement. These teams are entrusted with the responsibility of conducting threat assessments and promoting positive school climates. The threatening behavior that these teams evaluate includes verbal threats, threats of self harm, bullying, fighting, sexual assault, and dating violence. If done correctly, this model has the potential to limit the need to escalate matters to expulsions and referrals to law enforcement (Texas Appleseed et al., 2018). As an alternative to harsh punishments, threat assessments open the door for schools to adopt systems that address mental health and emotional needs. Much of the initial efforts to bring a threat assessment model to K-12 schools were shouldered by scholars at the University of Virginia, including Dr. Dewey Cornell. Among other important considerations, the research-based Virginia Threat Assessment Model explicitly emphasizes the intent to place student needs above the impulse to resort to zero-tolerance outcomes.

Another grounding principle of this approach includes making the critical distinction between whether the student poses a threat and whether they have made a threat. It is easier to recognize when a student has made an initial threat. However, determining if the student’s threat poses a legitimate risk of harm to the school community is a question that requires further inquiry. The Virginia Threat Assessment Model offers helpful language to make this distinction. Safe and Supportive School Teams can categorize a threat as either transient or substantive. Experts have designated that a transient threat is one where the student does not have the intent to carry out the threat. This may look like a student competitively telling their peer, “I am going to kill you,” before playing a pick-up basketball game. In this context, the student is likely referencing their confidence in winning the game, not an actual desire to harm their peer. Substantive threats, on the other hand, reflect an intent to cause harm that can be indicated by factors such as the student having a plan or possessing a weapon. The idea behind distinguishing transient and substantive threats is to avoid punishing a student simply because a non-viable comment has been made.

When addressing student conduct deemed “threatening,” it is important for school faculty and threat assessment teams to remember that they have options. Not all instances of threats — and in some cases substantive threats — warrant involvement from law enforcement. In fact, it is recommended that schools attempt to find a solution in disciplinary alternatives before resorting to traditional modes of punishment. The idea behind these alternatives would be to proactively address the circumstances directly causing the student to engage in this behavior. The Texas Education Code makes it possible for schools to provide student-focused support systems that “address school climate, the social and emotional domain, and behavioral and mental health.” In other words, the threat assessment approach is designed to complement other multi-tiered student interventions such as Restorative Practices, Social and Emotional Learning, Trauma-Informed Practices, and Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS). Compared to traditional responses to threats, the threat assessment approach assigns students with significantly less exclusionary discipline and more counseling support services (Cornell et al., 2018). When applied correctly, the use of threat assessments expands our consciousness around how schools ought to respond to student threats and harm.

Remaining Accountable While Conducting Threat Assessments

With any new approach to discipline, schools should always remain cautious of the ways that these practices can be poorly implemented. These alternatives should push us further away from disparities such as the ones found in the school-to-prison pipeline, not draw us closer. To avoid such faults, there are a few steps that educators, administrators, and threat assessment teams can take to promote accountability and equitable implementation:

• Continue to systematically evaluate whether the threat is truly threatening and poses a substantive risk of harm to the school community.
• Utilize the resources mentioned in the Texas Education Code, including training provided by the Texas School Safety Center, members of your designated Safe and Supportive School Team, and mental health care services provided by the team.
• Following the Texas Education Code, schools should regularly review and evaluate threat assessment data to include disaggregating for student categories, such as gender, race, homelessness, and special education status. In efforts of promoting equity within the school, teams should discuss and address incidents of overrepresentation, or disproportionate representation, of each of the categories. Data regarding threat assessments should be reported to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). It is expected that TEA should publish this collective data on threat assessments in public-facing reports.
• Consider the context and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the school community while conducting threat assessments. Especially in the case of remote and distance learning, threats are likely to be more transient than substantive.

While striving to stay true to these recommendations, it is important to remember that students are more than mere reflections of their behavior. Responding to harm in ways that respect a student’s humanity can leave a lasting impact for the better. In the age of threat assessments, Texas schools are expected to rise to the occasion and equitably approach harm from a lens of restoration rather than retribution.