Kramer, T.L., Jones, K.A., Kirchner, J., Miller,

Kramer, T.L., Jones, K.A., Kirchner, J., Miller, T.L., & Wilson, C. (2001). Addressing personnel concerns about school violence through education, assessment, and strategic planning. Education, 123, 292-304.

The violence that has been seen in schools recently has led to concerns about both intervention and prevention programs to address this issue. This violence has been steadily growing and because of this it has become clear that something must be done. Examined in this study is an intervention program that has three specific goals in mind. The first goal is to ensure that personnel that work at the school are away of and educated on various evidence-based programs that relate to school safety and the serious effects that can come from violence in schools. The second goal is to examine the perceptions that school personnel have regarding safety in their schools, how they respond to crisis, and how well they feel they perform when it comes to violence prevention. The third and final goal is the development of a model that can be used within the community and can be created by strategic planning.

In order to address these goals 32 students from a one-day summer workshop participated in focus groups and didactic sessions. These students were attending a workshop that dealt with posttraumatic stress disorder and violence and were all in kindergarten through 12th grade. They were given surveys that rated how well they understood the topics that were presented to them and they also took baseline surveys and 9-month follow-up surveys that dealt with how they felt their school performed when it came to preventing violence. Also examined in those surveys was whether any new programs had been developed at their schools to help with this issue. The study helped to indicate the importance of preventing violence in schools and how educational programs that are given to school personnel are capable of prompting these individuals to come up with new and better ways to keep their students safe from violence.

Meyer, M. & Leone, P. (1999). A structural analysis of school violence and disruption: Implications for creating safer schools. Education and Treatment of Children, 22, 333-356.

Structural equation modeling is used in this study to look at school violence and disruption. The data analyzed come from the National crime Victimization Survey's 1995 School Crime Supplement. Included in this data are 9,954 completed interviews that come from students ranging in age from 12 to 19 years old. These children are not in one specific area or demographic bracket and come from schools all across the United States. There were specific issues that were dealt with when it came to asking the students questions. The questions that were asked included information about the procedures and rules of the school, whether they had any personal experiences with violence at school or whether they knew of a teacher or student that had, if there were gangs at their school, whether drugs were accessible, and whether the students were afraid of being victimized while they were in school. All of these issues had strong significance for these individuals and for the study.