Technical Assistance
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February 27, 4:00-5:30 pm ET
What's New
HHS/Office of Adolescent Health Updates State-by-State Adolescent Mental Health Facts. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Adolescent Health has recently updated its state summaries that focus on adolescent mental health. Each state page reports on positive social skills, depressive symptoms, depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts, attempts, and injuries. Learn More
State Administrators |
State administrators can be strong advocates for improving school safety, school environment, and school engagement in the ways they guide policy and implementation. The following products, research articles and briefs, and tools help state administrators understand the various aspects of safe and healthy school environments, offer guidance on how to assess the conditions in their states' districts and schools, and provide strategies to enhance conditions for learning and school connectedness.
2010 CHIPRA Annual Report: Connecting Kids to Coverage
Reviews federal and state activities over the course of the two years since CHIPRA was enacted to bring the nation closer to ensuring that all children in America have health coverage and notes some of the plans for continued and enhanced activities in 2011.
Balancing Student Privacy and School Safety: A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Discusses, according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, under what emergency situations it is acceptable, for safety reasons, that a school override the "written consent" requirement.
Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey
Discusses the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), which measured the exposure to violence for children across several major categories: conventional crime, child maltreatment, victimization by peers and siblings, sexual victimization, witnessing and indirect victimization (including exposure to community violence and family violence), school violence and threats, and Internet victimization.
Civil Rights Data Collection: 2009-10 Data Summary Report
Summarizes analysis of equity and educational opportunities between various ethnicities in public schools with attention to Resource Equity, College and Career Readiness, and Discipline.
Drug Endangered Children
Provides information on how to identify, respond to, and provide services to drug endangered children; includes a compilation of related resources and a toolkit of promising practices to assist States, local, and tribal governments in identifying, responding to, and providing services for drug endangered children.
Effects and Consequences of Underage Drinking
Presents findings from a literature review that investigated how underage drinking can affect a youth’s physical, emotional, and neurological health. Discusses the personal, legal, and economic consequences of underage drinking.
Electronic Media and Youth Violence: A CDC Issue Brief for Educators and Caregivers
Summarizes what is known about young people and electronic aggression and discusses the implications of these findings for school staff, educational policy makers, and caregivers.
Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws Program
Provides an overview of OJJDP’s Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws program, which supports and enhances efforts by States and local jurisdictions to reduce the availability of alcohol to minors.
Evaluation Brief: The Carol M. White Physical Education Program Project Implementation During Year 1 of the Grant
Provides information on the implementation of PEP (the Carol M. White Physical Education Program), focused on developing high-quality physical education programs, creating an environment supportive of physical activity, and encouraging healthy eating habits and good nutrition.
Federal Resources on Missing and Exploited Children: A Directory for Law Enforcement and Other Public and Private Agencies Sixth Edition
Describes the federal services, programs, publications, and training sessions that address child sexual exploitation issues, child pornography, child abduction, Internet crime, and missing children cases.
Forum Guide to Crime, Violence, and Discipline Incident Data
Offers guidance on improving the effectiveness of efforts to collect and use disciplinary incident data, including reporting accurate and timely incident data to the federal government. Provides recommendations on what types of data to collect, why it is critical to collect such data, and how to implement and manage an incident database.
Fostering School Connectedness: Improving Student Health and Academic Achievement
Answers questions about school connectedness and identifies strategies school districts and administrators can use to foster it among their students.
Fostering School, Family, and Community Involvement
Identifies several components that, when effectively addressed, provide schools with the foundation and building blocks needed to create and maintain safe schools.
Girls Study Group: Understanding and Responding to Girls' Delinquency
Examines issues such as patterns of offending among adolescents and how they differ for girls and boys; risk and protective factors associated with delinquency, including gender differences; and the causes and correlates of girls’ delinquency.
Implementing Strong Nutrition Standards for Schools: Financial Implications
Outlines the evidence-based, financial implications of schools that have implemented strong nutrition standards to address childhood obesity.
Measuring Student Engagement in Upper Elementary Through High School: A Description of 21 Instruments
Reviews the characteristics of 21 instruments that measure student engagement in upper elementary through high school; summarizes what each instrument measures, describes its purposes and uses, and provides technical information on its psychometric properties.
Measuring Student Relationships to School: Attachment, Bonding, Connectedness, and Engagement
Identifies the various terms, constructs, and instruments used in the study of student connection to school.
Mobilizing for Evidence-Based Character Education
Offers strategies for working with external evaluators and key stakeholders in planning and implementing a scientifically sound evaluation. Organized in a logical sequence that reflects the order in which to undertake the eight basic steps of planning and implementing an evaluation.
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) School Questionnaire
Collects supplemental information about school factors that may influence students’ achievement, including items about the length of the school day and year, school enrollment, absenteeism, dropout rates, and the size and composition of the teaching staff. Also collects information about tracking policies, curricula, testing practices, special priorities, and schoolwide programs and problems; and the availability of resources, policies for parental involvement, special services, and community services.
NSDUH Report: How Young Adults Obtain Prescription Pain Relievers for Nonmedical Use
Reports on the prevalence of past year nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers among young adults aged 18 to 25 and how they obtained the prescription pain relievers they used most recently for nonmedical purposes.
Opportunities to Coordinate 21st Community Learning Centers Funding with the Child Care and Development Fund
Provides State child care administrators and other school-age stakeholders with an overview of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, and highlights potential areas for coordination with the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).
Personalization and Caring Relationships with Adults in Urban High Schools: Is There a Relationship with Academic Achievement?
Examines how student attitudes about personalization and advisory were related to academic outcomes.
Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities
Gives schools, districts, and communities the critical concepts and components of good crisis planning, stimulates thinking about the crisis preparedness process, and provides examples of promising practices.
Restraint and Seclusion: Resource Document
Presents 15 principles for state, district, and school staff; parents; and other stakeholders to consider when developing policies and procedures which should be in writing on the use of restraint and seclusion; and highlights the current state of practice and implementation considerations for each principle.
Safe and Healthy School Environments: an Overview
Provides a broad overview of the issues related to children’s environmental health in schools and describes how one administrator successfully manages environmental health issues for the largest public school district in California using a software tool designed by the district.
School Health Policies and Practices Study
Assesses school health policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels.
School-Based Obesity Prevention Strategies for State Policymakers
Offers recognized physical activity and healthy eating, strategies, undertaken by states, that have shown promise in helping schools address and prevent childhood obesity.
Social And Emotional Learning And Student Benefits: Implications for the Safe School/Healthy Students core elements
Summarizes research indicating how Social And Emotional Learning addresses the Safe Schools/Healthy Students core elements of safe learning environments and violence prevention activities; substance abuse prevention; behavioral, social, and emotional supports; mental health services; and early childhood SEL programs.
Social Emotional Learning and Bullying Prevention (2009)
Illustrates the relationship between social and emotional factors and bullying; explains how an SEL framework can be extended to include bullying prevention; and provides suggested resources for doing so.
Substance Abuse Prevention Dollars and Cents: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Policymakers and other stakeholders can use cost-benefit analysis as an informative tool for decisionmaking for substance abuse prevention. This report reveals the importance of supporting effective prevention programs as part of a comprehensive substance abuse prevention strategy.
The Challenge
Provides critical information and resources to help schools in creating safe and healthy environments for students. It is a publication of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students.
The School Environment and Adolescent Well-Being: Beyond Academics
Presents national estimates from a variety of sources on the school environment of adolescents in the areas of health, safety, social support, academics, and civic engagement.
Tool Kit for Creating Your Own Truancy Reduction Program
Outlines critical components of truancy programs such as family involvement, use of incentives and sanctions, developing a support network, and program evaluation. Available online only.
Underage Drinking Costs
Estimates the costs that are incurred by states as a direct result of underage alcohol consumption.
Featured Resource(s):
Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies
Reviews states' bullying laws and model bullying policies and school districts' bullying policies, using the U.S. Department of Education's guidance document, "Anti-Bullying Policies: Examples of Provisions in State Laws," as an organizing framework for the review.
Prevalence and Implementation Fidelity of Research-Based Prevention Programs in Public Schools
Examines the prevalence of research-based drug and violence prevention programs in schools and the programs' implementation fidelity.
The Health and Well-Being of Children: A Portrait of States and the Nation 2007
Reports on the health and well-being of children, as well as the factors in the family environment and aspects of the neighborhood that may support or undermine the health of children and their families based on data from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Monitoring and Mapping Student Victimization in Schools
Argues that successful school violence prevention programs should involve a strategy of understanding where and when violence takes place in a particular school and then developing and implementing safety programs adapted to what is found in that school. Provides instruction on how to collect information on when and where violence occurs and how to use information collected to create a strategic violence prevention plan.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Monitoring Indicators of Children’s Victimization in School: Linking National-, Regional-, and Site-Level Indicators
Suggests monitoring school violence from multiple perspectives, using multiple indicators, and comparing the results of national, regional, and state level studies in order to empower decision makers at each of these levels to provide the best solutions to school violence based on a picture showing, in full perspective, what the biggest problem areas are.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Monitoring school violence: Linking national-, district-, and school-level data over time
Identifies the need for monitoring systems of school violence at the national, district, and school level who’s data can be gathered together and compared in order to make decisions on dealing with school violence that are based on both a global perspective and on the needs of independent cases.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: School Violence and Theoretically Atypical Schools: The Principal's Centrality in Orchestrating Safe Schools
Examines variables that explain how, while typically the level of safety within a school is a reflection of the level of safety in that school's surrounding community, there are some outlier schools with levels of safety that do not correlate with that of the community.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Unowned Places and Times: Maps and Interviews About Violence in High Schools
Determines that school violence often occurs when there is a lack of adult supervision and explores what feasible adaptations could be made to lower school violence rates in light of these findings.
A Profile of Criminal Incidents at School: Results from the 2003-05 National Crime Victimization Survey
Provides estimates of criminal incidents that occur at school based on incident-level data obtained from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the nation’s primary source of information on criminal victimization and criminal incidents in the United States.
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being (2011)
Presents 41 key indicators in seven domains: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2007
Presents detailed information on the welfare of children and families including such topics as family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.
America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009
Provides annual updates on the well-being of children and families in the United States across a range of domains.
Breaking School Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement
Describes the analysis of millions of school and juvenile justice records in Texas to improve policymakers’ understanding of who is suspended and expelled from public secondary schools, and the impact of those removals on students’ academic performance and juvenile justice system involvement.
Bullying in Schools: An Overview
Summarizes studies exploring the connections between bullying in schools, school attendance and engagement, and academic achievement.
Child and Youth Victimization Known to Police, School, and Medical Authorities
Presents the survey results from the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV) regarding authorities' knowledge of victimization incidents involving children and youth, particularly police, school, and medical authorities.
Child Health USA
Compiles secondary data for many health status indicators, and provides both graphical and textual summaries of data and addresses long-term trends.
Civil Rights Data Collection
Collects data, that are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and disability, from a representative sample of schools and districts, representing 85% of the students in our nation's schools, on a range of issues including college and career readiness, discipline, school finance, and student retention.
Crime and Safety Surveys
Provides data and reports produced by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on the topic of school crime and safety, organized by survey respondent.
Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings From the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2009–10
Presents findings on crime and violence in U.S. public schools, using data from the 2009–10 School Survey on Crime and Safety. Survey asks public school principals about the frequency of incidents, such as physical attacks, robberies, and thefts, in their schools; and asks about school programs, disciplinary actions, and the policies implemented to prevent and reduce crime in schools.
Effectiveness of Cross-Age and Peer Mentoring Programs
Examines research on peer mentoring programs, highlighting their benefits and noting conditions and components of successful programs.
Electronic Media and Youth Violence: A CDC Research Brief for Researchers
Summarizes the data, to highlight the research gaps, and to suggest future topics for research to better understand the growing problem of electronic media and youth violence.
Findings From the Evaluation of OJJDP's Gang Reduction Program
Presents findings from an independent evaluation of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP’s) Gang Reduction Program—a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to gang reduction.
First Look Report on Dropout Prevention Services and Programs in Public School Districts
Provides national data about how public school districts identify students at risk of dropping out, programs used specifically to address the needs of students at risk of dropping out of school, the use of mentors for at-risk students, and efforts to encourage dropouts to return to school.
Geographic Patterns of Obesity Prevalence Among Low-Income, Preschool-Aged Children
Maps the geographic variability of obesity across the nation by drawing on state-level collected through the Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS).
Highlights From Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders
Looks at the factors that lead youth who have committed serious offenses to continue or desist from offending, including individual maturation, life changes, and involvement with the criminal justice system.
Highlights of the 2006 National Youth Gang Survey
Summarizes findings from the 2006 survey and reports data on the number of gangs, gang members, and gang-related crime. Based on survey results, it is estimated that approximately 26,500 gangs and 785,000 gang members were active in the United States in 2006.
Highlights of the 2007 National Youth Gang Survey
Reports findings from the 2007 National Youth Gang Survey. Based on survey results, it is estimated that nearly 3,550 jurisdictions across the United States experienced gang activity in 2007.
Highlights of the 2009 National Youth Gang Survey
Summarizes findings from the 2009 National Youth Gang Survey (NYGS), a systematic survey of law enforcement agencies across the United States regarding the presence and characteristics of local gang problems; discusses the prevalence of gangs in the U.S., rates of gang activity and gang homicides, and factors that may influence gang violence.
Improving academic achievement through improving school climate and student connectedness
Presents analyses of survey data regarding how students experience social and emotional conditions for learning, and the relationship of these conditions to academic outcomes.
Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2011
Provides data on crime and safety at school from the perspective of students, teachers, and principals. Provides crime and safety information for students’ travel to and from school. Highlights the most current detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools and school environments and responses to violence and crime at school.
Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity
Documents the existence of disparities for minorities in mental health services and the underlying knowledge base; reviews issues relevant to the mental health of racial and ethnic minorities; and provides a historical and cultural context within which minority health may be be better understood.
Nutrition and Physical Education Policy and Practice in the Pacific Region
Describes the percentage of secondary schools that have adopted policies and practices for student wellness, physical education, food service, and nutrition education across the seven jurisdictions in the Pacific Region.
Perceptions of Risk from Substance Use among Adolescents
Explores age and gender trends among adolescents' perceived risk associated with the use of cigarettes, heroin, LSD, cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana.
Prevalence of Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963-1965 Through 2007-2008
Reports that nearly 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years of age are obese; covers trends and racial/ethnic disparities in obesity among young people.
Prevalence of Obesity in the United States, 2009–2010
Presents the most recent national data on obesity prevalence among U.S. adults, adolescents, and children based on measured weight and height.
Relationships Matter: Linking Teacher Support to Student Engagement and Achievement
Illustrates the relationship between student experience of support from teachers, student engagement, and academic achievement among elementary and middle school students.
Results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Detailed Tables
Presents information on drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, as well as drug and alcohol dependence and abuse and treatment, by a variety of demographic, geographic, and other variables, including rates of the behaviors, numbers of persons engaging in these behaviors, and other measures.
School Climate Predictors of School Disorder: Results from a National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools
Examines the association of school organizational characteristics with school crime and disorder in a nationally representative sample of 254 secondary schools.
Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)
Collects information on teacher demand and shortage, teacher and administrator characteristics, school programs, and general conditions in schools, as well as principals' and teachers' perceptions of school climate and problems in their schools; teacher compensation; district hiring practices and basic characteristics of the student population. Four core components: the School Questionnaire, the Teacher Questionnaire, the Principal Questionnaire, and the School District Questionnaire.
Seasonality of Youth's First-Time Use of Marijuana, Cigarettes, or Alcohol
Examines the percentage of teens age 12 to 17 who begin using alcohol, marijuana, or cigarettes each month.
Shifting Boundaries: Final Report on an Experimental Evaluation of a Youth Dating Violence Prevention Program in New York City Middle Schools
Evaluates the effectiveness of a multi‐level approach (i.e., targeting a young, universal primary prevention audience with classroom‐based curricula and school‐level interventions) to dating violence and harassment (DV/H) prevention programming (in terms of knowledge, attitudes, intended behavior, and behavior of youth participants) for middle school students from a large urban school district.
Student Reports of Bullying and Cyber-Bullying: Results From the 2007 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey
Uses data from the 2007 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to show the relationship between bullying and cyber-bullying victimization and other variables of interest such as the reported presence of gangs, guns, drugs, and alcohol at school; select school security measures; student criminal victimization; and personal fear, avoidance behaviors, fighting, and weapon-carrying at school.
Student Victimization in U.S. Schools: Results From the 2009 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey
Uses data from the 2009 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to examine student criminal victimization and the characteristics of crime victims and nonvictims. Also provides findings on student reports of the presence of gangs and weapons and the availability of drugs and alcohol at school, student reports of bullying and cyberbullying, and fear and avoidance behaviors of crime victims and nonvictims at school.
The Effectiveness of Universal School-Based Programs for the Prevention of Violent and Aggressive Behavior
Provides a summary of findings from a review of evidence concerning the effectiveness of universal school-based violence prevention programs.
Using Environmental Design to Prevent School Violence
Considers how Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), a crime reduction approach that focuses on reducing crime opportunities and on promoting positive social behavior, can be applied to school violence prevention.
What are Districts' Written Policies Regarding Student Substance-Related Incidents?
Describes key features of the high school alcohol and drug policies in the 100 largest school districts in the United States.
Measuring Student Engagement in Upper Elementary Through High School: A Description of 21 Instruments
Reviews the characteristics of 21 instruments that measure student engagement in upper elementary through high school; summarizes what each instrument measures, describes its purposes and uses, and provides technical information on its psychometric properties.
Safe Communities, Safe Schools: School Safety Glossary
Simple, concise tool for schools, families, and communities.
TOXMAP: Environmental Health e-Maps
Explores on-site toxic releases and hazardous waste sites from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL).
U.S. Physical Activity Statistics
Allows user to select year to compare physical activity statistics and demographics (age, race/ethnicity, gender, education) in two or more states.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Balancing Utility and Research Criteria in Conditions for Learning Measurement
Addresses the issue in monitoring of choosing between research based and “state-grown” systems and recommends ways to reach toward validity, reliability, and useful results when unfamiliar instruments are used.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Best Practices Among States and Districts
Presents the importance of sustaining a positive school climate, lists tools and initiatives used by schools to improve school climate, discusses challenges to implementing changes and their possible solutions, and finally, makes recommendations for getting started with program implementation.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Considerations and Strategies for Family and Staff Surveys
Provides rules and strategies for successful development and administration of staff and family surveys on school climate. Uses lessons learned from “The Healthy Kids School Climate Survey” and surveys conducted by “New Teacher Center”.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Expanding and Improving Data on Bullying, Harassment and Discipline
Identifies two sources of data on school climate variables: “Civil Rights Data Collection” and “Incident Data”. Describes types of data each source offers and explores their potential uses and applications.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: How Can We Improve School Safety Research?
Suggests future approaches to researching school safety, such as working with attention to understanding school violence in context, understanding the interrelationships among types of violence at school, understanding cross-cultural and within-culture, variability in etiology and prevention of school violence, replicating evidence based practice studies to establish greater external validity, and observing and learning from schools that have independently made marked improvements in school safety.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Improving Collaboration with Agencies and Partners for the Collection and Use of Data
Promotes tapping into and integrating existing state and local agencies and initiatives who’s missions are aligned with one or more of the areas outlined in the mission of school climate improvement as a strategy for gaining access to more data, strengthening supports, and ultimately, making school climate improvments more sustainable. Provides examples of cross agency collaborations that have proved beneficial.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: International Practice and Context for School Climate
Introduces the concept of school climate, providing a description of its variables and a picture of its history. Compares national, regional, and local school climate monitoring in terms of advantages and disadvantages and what types of conclusions can be drawn from each. Presents examples of monitoring from schools in Israel and U.S. Military Schools.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Key Strategies for Understanding and Using Climate Data
Walks through the reiterative process of evaluating school climate, raising support for change, and implementing needed changes. Presents an example of this process from the California School Climate Surveys, outlining the steps taken, and, with the results as a guide, painting a picture of what a school climate that promotes academic achievement looks like.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Linkages of School Climate Data to Academic Outcomes
Provides instruction on demonstrating the connections between school climate and academic outcomes as a means of appealing for the support of the parties in a position to champion and sustain the programs. Provides tips for selecting the best evaluation tools and considerations for presenting the resulting data to various audiences in ways that strategically appeal to their interests.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Making the Case for an International Perspective on School Violence - Implications for Theory, Research, Policy, and Assessment
Proposes a comprehensive study of school violence as it appears in cultures across the globe, suggesting that regions could share with one another their proposed theories on school violence, and, share interventions and policies that have been found effective. Discusses inherent challenges in performing a study of this kind and identifies resources and supports needed to accomplish the objectives of such a study.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: School Safety Score Considerations: Construction, Quality, Utility
Provides direction on developing a valid and reliable method for measuring school safety using and balancing the different data sources and measurement tools available. Recommends approaches for presenting results of measurements to key audiences.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: Strategic Planning Process for Sustainability
Presents a step by step approach to generating public interest and support for a school improvement program and sustaining support for the program over time. Discusses researching audience (key influencers), demonstrating importance of the program, maintaining engagement, and using feedback to evaluate overall effectiveness of the engagement strategy.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: The Connection Between Climate and Academics
Presents evidence and logic for school climate’s positive correlation with academic achievement. Examines evidence for and describes characteristics of the school climate variables of “Safety”, “Support, Care, and Connections”, “Challenge and Engagement”, and “Social Emotional Competency”.
2011 School Climate Technical Assistance Symposium: The Use of Data for Making Improvements at the School Level
Suggests approaches to using data on school climate to assess shortcomings and address them. Emphasizes the need to use multiple sources of data and presents a step by step guide to making improvements based on data collected.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Building Learning Communities to Sustain Program Efforts
Defines communities of practice as they pertain to sustaining school climate improvement programs. Discusses how these learning communities contribute to sustaining efforts, providing examples from the National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At Risk (NDTAC).
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Creating a Positive School Climate through Community and School Partnerships
Provides examples of student success programs partnering with their local communities and other student success related programs within or beyond the school itself in order to to create wrap around intervention systems for those students who are struggling academically or behaviorally to various degrees.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Fiscal Sustainability Worksheet
Compliments "Sustainability Planning Worksheet" as a program financial sustainability planner. Coinsides with the "Planning for Sustainability" resource which presents this step-by-step worksheet tool for making plans of sustainability within school climate improvement programs from the beginning of implementation.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Iowa S3 Program Planning Efforts
Discusses implementing programs that ensure school safety and academic success, covering what makes up Iowa's program as an example. Demonstrates Iowa's success via participation in standard LEA implementation activities and their Safe School Certification Program as well as via completing items on an implementation checklist.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Laying the Foundation - A Discussion on Moving Fidelity of Implementation from Compliance to Capacity Building
Discusses the foundational role of universal prevention in school-climate program implementation, and, reveals that the change process must be developmental, or completed over a period of years, and executed with attention fidelity.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Management, Evaluation and Implementation of Maryland’s S3 Initiative
Shares experience and results so far of Maryland’s S3 school climate program as an example of program management, evaluation and implementation. Discusses the makeup of a 3 tiered system of support for students applied by this state's specific program.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Planning for Sustainability
Presents a step-by-step worksheet tool for making plans of sustainability within school climate improvement programs from the beginning of implementation.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Resources to Support Improved School Climate
Documents descriptions and links to a variety of guides, briefs, tools, and websites by the school climate content areas of programmatic intervention, measures, school climate (engagement, environment, and safety), and special populations.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: School Climate Literature Handout
Cites programs and measurement resources for the content areas of bullying, challenging behavior, character education, health, school climate, school safety, student engagement, and mental health.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Sustainability Planning Worksheet
Coinsides with the "Planning for Sustainability" resource which presents this step-by-step worksheet tool for making plans of sustainability within school climate improvement programs from the beginning of implementation.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Sustaining Innovations
Answers questions about sustaining innovations including: What is sustainability? What is innovation? What factors effect innovation implementation? What do you want to have last? And, what strategies do we need to use to bring about broad, deep, enduring impacts?
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Sustaining Programs through Communities of Practice
Defines and discusses the strategic value of communities of practice in achieving and sustaining goals and provides examples of success with this model. Reveals how communities of practice are involved in the evolution of knowledge management.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Sustaining School Climate and Culture
Shows what activities Kansas State Department of Education schools partake in that generate and sustain school climate improvement. References programs and partnerships taken on by Kansas both of their own authorship and from without to meet these ends.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: Virginia - Effective Implementation of Programmatic Interventions
Reveals keys and make-up of school climate improvement program success, based upon the example of Virginia's experience with S3 implementation. Defines and discusses the value of student assistance programing (SAP) as well as the levels of Virginia's multi-tiered model of supporting students.
2012 OSHS Grantee TA Symposium: West Virginia: Safe and Supportive Schools Initiative
Discusses the strategic steps taken to provide an organizational framework for planning in the West Virginia model for positive school climate. Demonstrates the model's use of an internet-based intervention plan and vetting process for programs.
Creating a Safe and Respectful Environment on Our Nation's School Buses
Houses archive of the event called "Creating a Safe and Respectful Environment on Our Nation's School Buses" organized to bring together national and state leaders, representatives of key education organizations, and other federal agencies who want to improve working conditions for our nation’s school bus drivers, to create a safe and respectful environment on our schools buses, and to generate confidence and partnerships in school with administrators, teachers, parents, students and community members.
Creating Safer Schools & Healthier Children: A Model Bullying Prevention Program
Shares how the Highmark Foundation spearheaded the creation of a coalition of experts to implement the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) in the largest statewide bullying prevention initiative in the country and how other stakeholders around the country can replicate this unique, model program.
Role of Mental Health in Schools
Discusses justification for schools’ attention to students’ mental health and why school is an ideal setting for mental health work to take place, presents evidence based programs that can be used to improve school mental health, and provides examples of existing school mental health programs that have found success.
School Climate Survey Compendium (as of December 20, 2011)
To assist educators and education agencies in locating a valid and reliable needs assessment that suits their needs, the Safe and Supportive Schools Technical Assistance Center is developing a compendium of student, staff, and family surveys that can be used as part of a school climate needs assessment. Below is an initial list of school climate survey batteries. (Alternatively, click here to download a summary table (PDF) of each survey by respondent type.)
Please note that the Office of Safe and Healthy Students does not endorse any particular scale or survey presented in this compendium. Additionally, the database presented is not an exhaustive listing of available measures or survey instruments. If you would like to nominate a survey that is not currently included in the compendium, click on the link below.
Nominate a Survey
Alaska School Climate and Connectedness Survey
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Staff |
Reports |
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Survey Instruments |
These survey instruments are not publicly available. Please contact Kim Kendziora at kkendziora@air.org for more information about this survey. |
American Institutes for Research Conditions for Learning Survey
Constructs |
Safe and Respectful Climate, High Expectations, Student Support, Social and Emotional Learning |
Respondents |
Students |
Reports |
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Survey Instruments |
There is no charge for using this survey. Please contact David Osher at dosher@air.org for additional information. |
California Healthy Kids Survey
Constructs |
School connectedness, School supports - caring relationships, School supports - high expectations, School supports - opportunities for meaningful participation, Community supports - caring relationships, Community supports - high expectations, Community supports - opportunities for meaningful participation, Tobacco, alcohol, or drug use at school, Physical/ verbal/emotional violence victimization, Physical/ verbal/emotional violence perpetration, Harassment victimization, Peer supports - caring relationships, Peer supports - high expectations, Home supports - caring relationships, Home supports - high expectations, Home supports - opportunities for meaningful participation, Problem solving Self-efficacy, Cooperation and communication, Empathy, Self-awareness |
Respondents |
Students |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Please note that while a copy of the survey instrument is publicly available at http://chks.wested.org/administer/download, it is copyright protected. Information on obtaining the survey instrument can be found at: http://chks.wested.org/. |
California School Climate Survey
Constructs |
Collegiality, Resource provisions and training, Professional development – instruction, Professional development – cultural competence, Professional development – meeting student needs, Positive student learning environment, Caring and respectful relationships, High expectations of students, Opportunities for meaningful participation, Cultural sensitivity, Clarity and equity of discipline policies, Perceived school safety, Learning facilitative behavior, Learning barrier – risk behavior, Learning barrier – interpersonal conflict and destructive behavior |
Respondents |
Staff |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Please note that while a copy of the survey instrument is publicly available at http://cscs.wested.org/training_support, it is copyright protected. Information on obtaining the survey instrument can be found at: http://cscs.wested.org/. |
California School Parents Survey
Constructs |
Facilitation of parent involvement, Positive student learning environment, Opportunities for meaningful participation, Cultural sensitivity, Clarity and equity of discipline policies, Perceived school safety, Learning barriers |
Respondents |
Parents |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Please note that while a copy of the survey instrument is publicly available at http://csps.wested.org/, it is copyright protected. Information on obtaining the survey instrument can be found at: http://cscs.wested.org/. |
The Center for Research in Educational Policy School Climate Inventory
Constructs |
Orderly School Environment; Instructional Leadership; Positive Learning Environment; Parent and Community Involvement; Well-Developed and Implemented Instruction; Expectations for Students; Collaboration among Administration, Faculty, and Students |
Respondents |
Teachers, Administrators and Professional Staff |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
This survey instrument is not publicly available. Please contact the Center for Research in Educational Policy at CREP@memphis.edu or 1-866-670-6147 for more information. |
The Center for Social and Emotional Education Comprehensive School Climate Inventory
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Staff, Parents/Guardians, Community Members |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
These survey instruments are not publicly available. Please contact Darlene Faster, COO and Director of Communications, at the National School Climate Center at dfaster@schoolclimate.org or (212) 707-8799 x22 for more information on these surveys. |
Communities That Care Youth Survey
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
The 2010 survey instrument is not publicly available. Please contact Michael Arthur at marthur@u.washinton.edu for information about this survey. |
The Consortium on Chicago School Research Survey of Chicago Public Schools
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Staff |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Student surveys are available at http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/downloads/17242009_my_voice__9th-11th_student_codebook_.pdf and http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/downloads/23532009_my_voice_senior_student_codebook.pdf. Staff survey is available at http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/downloads/2009/HS_Teacher_Survey09Cdbk_8-6.pdf. Please note that the student and staff surveys are currently being updated and are copyrighted. Please contact Nick Montgomery at nmontgomery@uchicago.edu for additional information on these surveys. |
Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Faculty/Staff, Parents |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
These survey instruments can be used free of charge, subject to the conditions of the User Agreement, and can be found at: http://excellenceandethics.com/assess/ceea.php. Please contact Vlad Khmelkov at vkhmelkov@excellenceandethics.com for additional information. |
Effective School Battery
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Teachers |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Additional information and order forms for these survey instruments can be found at: http://www.education.umd.edu/EDCP/schoolassess/Tools/ESB/ESB.html. Please contact Eva Yui at climate-assess@umd.edu for additional information. |
Perceived School Experiences Scale
Constructs |
Academic Motivation, Academic Press, School Connectedness |
Respondents |
Students |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
There is no charge for using this survey. Please contact Dawn Anderson-Butcher at anderson-butcher.1@osu.edu for additional information. |
Pride Learning Environment Survey
Constructs |
School climate; teacher and student respect; student discipline; school safety; teacher to student relationships; teacher collaboration; student engagement; student encouragement; frequency of substance use; effect of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; age of first substance use; perceived harmful effects of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; parents’ feelings towards alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; place of substance use; time of substance use; violence; bullying |
Respondents |
Students |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Please note that while a copy of the survey instrument is publicly available at http://dbdemo.pridesurveys.com, it is copyright protected. Information on obtaining the survey instrument can be found at: |
Pride Teaching Environment Survey
Constructs |
Like Teaching, Like Administrators – My School, Like Administrators – Instructional Leadership, Effective Teaching, Teacher Evaluation, Principal Support, Teacher Respect, Participatory Decision-making, Staff Collegiality, Desired Involvement in Improving Teaching Practices, Current Involvement in School Policies and Practices, Desired Involvement in Teaching Practice Policies, Student Discipline, Student Conduct Rules/Policies, Teacher Stress, Classroom Support, Teacher Attitude, Interpersonal Relationships, Student Engagement, Teacher Pay, Facilities and Resources, Teacher Workload |
Respondents |
Faculty |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Please note that while a copy of the survey instrument is publicly available at http://dbdemo.pridesurveys.com, it is copyright protected. Information on obtaining the survey instrument can be found at: |
Search Institute Creating a Great Place to Learn Survey
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Staff |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
These survey instruments are not publicly available. Please contact the Search Institute for additional information at http://www.search-institute.org/survey-services. |
Secondary Classroom Climate Assessment Instrument
Constructs |
Discipline environment, Student interactions, Learning assessment, Attitude and culture |
Respondents |
Students, Staff |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
Survey instrument is not publicly available. Please contact John Shindler, Director of the Alliance for the Study of School Climate at jshindl@calstatela.edu for additional information on the CCAI. |
Secondary School Climate Assessment Instrument
Constructs |
|
Respondents |
Students, Faculty, Parents |
Reports |
|
Survey Instruments |
This survey instrument is not publicly available. Please contact John Shindler, Director of the Alliance for the Study of School Climate at jshindl@calstatela.edu for additional information on the SCAI. |