The authors wish to thank the heads of their respective agencies, Gary W. Phillips of the National Center for Educa-tion Statistics (NCES) and Lawrence Greenfield of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), for supporting this report. We also appreciate the support provided by Bill Modzeleski of the Safe and Drug-free Schools program. Their support of our larger data collection and reporting agendas on school crime and safety make this report possible.

From BJS, we wish to thank Callie Rennison of the Victimization Statistics Branch for her work in preparing and verifying data from the NCVS.

From NCES, we wish to thank Bruce Taylor, Ilona Berkovits, and Patt Dabbs, who served as reviewers. They each provided input that substantially improved the publication.

Outside of NCES and BJS, school crime experts who reviewed the report were John Bishop of Cornell University, Joseph Moone of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Joanne Wiggins of the Planning and Evaluation Service of the U. S. Department of Education. Their advice was gratefully accepted. We particularly appreciated their willingness to review the report under very strict time constraints.

Without the assistance of the following staff at MPR Associates this report could not have been produced: Barbara Kridl (overall production and proofreading), Francesca Tussing (production, proofreading, layout, and editing), Andrea Livingston (editing), and Leslie Retallick (figure design and text layout). They provided invaluable editorial, graphic, and production assistance.