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1. X Part Introduction 15 US Department of Education and U S Department of Justice 1999 Annual Report on School Safety Washington D C Authors 1999 Available from the U S Department of Education 877 4ED PUBS www ed gov offices OESE SDFS publications html This 61 page report presents the nature and scope of school violence in the United States highlights 54 communities that are putting into practice a collaborative problem solving model presents summary information on school violence prevention and related programs that have demonstrated effectiveness and lists resources for more information about school safety including organizations Web sites listservs videos Federal resources and publications US Department of Education and U S Department of Justice Early Warning Timely Response A Guide to Safe Schools Washington D C Authors 2000 Available from the U S Department of Education 877 4ED PUBS www ed gov offices OESE SDFS publications html This 40 page Guide presents a brief summary of the research on violence prevention and intervention and crisis response in schools Specific topics include characteristics of a school that is safe and responsive to all children early warning signs getting help for troubled children developing a prevention and response plan and responding to a crisis US Department of Education and U S Department of Justice Safeguarding Our Children An Action Gu
2. Offenders Jefferson found that the same dozen students were involved in doing almost all the bullying In more than half the incidents the offending students were in groups of two or three when they did the bullying The offenders were not known to be gang members In nearly half the cases the bullying appeared to involve male students harassing other male students who were perceived to be wimps or gay Several of the other incidents involved a boy making suggestive comments to a girl but claiming that he was just flirting The rest involved girls commenting sarcastically on other girls appearance e Victims School COP showed that 6 students were victims in more than 1 of the bullying incidents There was no pattern for grade level among victims or offenders There was no pattern in the identity of the girls who were victimized in the boy girl bullying incidents but the girls bullied by other girls tended to be overweight Location and Timing Schoo COP showed that 12 of the 26 bullying incidents occurred right after school in the two parking lots Three of the bullying incidents occurred right before school in the parking lots or near the main school entrance The rest took place in the corridors between classes or in the school cafeter a Jefferson s analysis of the Schoo COP database showed that 12 of the 26 bullying incidents were limited to verbal abuse while 7 incidents involved threats 7 involved physi
3. Tables Should a particular code table contain 5 choices or 50 choices On the one hand it is often tempting to include every possible piece of information in a database for example every conceivable type of incident On the other hand it is important to keep the database easy to use School COP requires a middle ground enter only but all of the data that you will actually find helpful later on for identifying analyzing implementing and assessing strategies for addressing school discipline and crime Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 61 problems The guiding principle for deciding what options to include in each code table should always be Will this piece of information help me to identify or address a discipline or crime problem Of course sometimes this question is difficult to answer One tip is to consider how many categories you and other stakeholders would want to see along the horizontal axis in School COP graphs Would you want for example a bar graph showing the number incidents by incident type to include one bar for Drug Possession or separate bars for Drug Possession Marijuana Drug Possession Cocaine Drug Possession Heroin and Drug Possession Other Even if you do not break the Drug Possession incident type code into codes that indicate the type of drug you can still capture and search for information on the type of drug in the i
4. Although the action taken code table is typically used to describe what happened to the offender it could also be used to describe services provided to the victim s such as counseling A special comment should be made regarding names entered in School COP especially student names In the January 2001 version of Schoo COP there is no code table for pre entering names nof is there a method for importing a list of names from another database Instead student names are entered one at a time as they are involved in incidents There is howevet a drop down list for the name field on the People Involved Screen The drop down list will contain all the names that you have previously entered in Schoo COP Tip enter names in last name comma first name format so that offender and victim lists can be alphabetized properly If the person you are about to enter has been previously entered in School COP then it is extremely important that you select that name from the drop down list If you do not you risk having the same person listed in Schoo COP under two different names An added benefit of selecting names from the drop down list is that the most recently entered demographic information about this person is automatically displayed on the screen which saves data entry time KX Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 69 Chapter 8 UsageTips Below and summarized in the box
5. A reference section includes related books publications web sites and conferences International Association of Chiefs of Police IACP Guide for Preventing and Responding to School Violence Available from the IACP Suite 400 515 North Washington Street Alexandria VA 22314 703 836 6767 www theiacp org Based on expert opinion and focus groups this 30 page report presents different strategies and approaches for members of school communities to consider in creating safer learning environments Topics range from anti bullying programs to student courts from the role of parents to evaluation approaches Kenney Dennis and T Steuart Watson Crime in the Schools Reducing Fear and Disorder with Student Problem Solving Washington D C Police Executive Research Forum 1998 Available from PERE 1120 Connecticut Avenue N W Suite 930 Washington D C 20036 202 466 7820 www policeforum org This research report discusses the application of the SARA problem solving model in the Charlotte Mecklenberg County North Carolina School District A quasi experimental research design was employed that 14 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems collected data in 3 waves from more than 450 students attending 11th grade social science classes in 2 schools 1 experimental and 1 control during the 1994 95 school yeat The study concluded that although gangs drugs and armed
6. School attendance records indicated that 12 of the victims were absent from school 2 or more days after the incident and every student absence resulted in a loss of State aid A year ago a parent had complained about bullying to a school committee member It would not look good for Lincoln High School administrators if another parent approached the school committee with a similar problem Analysis As part of the Analysis stage of SARA Louise Madison and Prank Jefferson identified resources that could help them to analyze the problem determined the underlying causes of the bullying and identified stakeholders who could help implement solutions Identifying resources to help analyze the problem Madison and Jefferson decided they had the time to tap three sources of information School COP a brainstorming session involving the assistant principal the four guidance counselors the school psychologist and the teacher association president and interviews with a few students who had been bullied and a few students who did the bullying In April Madison reassembled the group to share and analyze what they had all learned Here is what they found Identifying what was causing the bullying Using Schoo COP Jefferson found out the following information about the offenders victims and location of the bullying 38 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems
7. n the past most students caught bullying were found to have continued the behavior for an average of another two months before they stopped Since the anti bullying initiative began three months ago only 1 of the last 6 students caught bullying has been found to repeat the behavior 32 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems During the last school year in only 2 of the 15 incidents of bullying did the victim report the problem school personnel who witnessed the bullying reported it in the other 13 incidents During the first six months of this academic year 5 of the 7 students bullied reported the incident themselves Two students who had been victims of bullying had missed 22 and 16 days of school respectively during the three months after the bullying started During the past three months since the anti bullying effort began these students have missed only 2 and 3 days of school respectively Recording and retrieving the data necessary for making these kinds of assessments may seem like a daunting and time consuming task However as illustrated in chapters 5 and 6 School COP makes the process of entering and analyzing this information relatively quick and easy Of course if the evaluation shows the effort is not succeeding you will need to change your problem solving approach To do this you may need to conduct additional analyses of the data you already have stored i
8. school security staff reduce student discipline and crime problems using a new software application called the School Crime Operations Package or School COP School COP is designed to enable you to record and store detailed information about incidents involving student misconduct and crime so that you can identify and prioritize problems in your school s identify strategies for helping to prevent future incidents determine whether these strategies are helping to address the problem School COP was developed by the Law and Public Policy Area of Abt Associates Inc a private reseatch company with headquarters in Cambridge Massachusetts see the box The National Institute of Justice the research and evaluation arm of the U S Department of Justice funded the development of School COP The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Office the branch of the U S Department of Justice responsible for promoting and evaluating community policing efforts nationwide funded the development of this Guide The Guide is a companion to the Schoo COP software package and User Manual see chapter 3 for information on how to obtain Schoo COP and was developed for distribution 4 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems About Abt Associates Inc Founded in 1965 and currently employing over 1 000 staff in seven domestic and three foreign offices Abt Associates has con
9. screens are fictitious References are made on each screen to other screens via callout messages that direct you to other pages in the appendix Main Menu After you log in to School COP the Main Menu is displayed Select One of the Following Options Enter Edit School Incidents f Search Incidents Graphs and Tabular Reports Mapping Administrative Functions Exit 84 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Incident Screen On the Incident Screen you can enter new incidents update information on an incident or browse through previously entered incidents School Incidents Use this form to enter or edit information about school incidents Click Exit to return to the main menu Incident pn School Leaning High School Weapon Date 10 13 00 Area LHS Ground 7 Special Imm dd yy bad Circumstance 00 01 Location Basebal Field ReportedBy wr Frankos Time 140 Incident Alcohol Investigator Grandview hhmm Entered By Eic Severity Misdemeanor Status Closed Entry Date 10 13 00 Other Agency Case Number Narrative Exit Appendix School COP Screens 85 People Involved Screen On the People Involved Screen you can enter information about people involved in an incident update information on a person browse through on previously entered people or g
10. COP tabular report Code Table Contents All Code Tables to view the contents of these 3 code tables X Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 59 Discuss and finalize with school and law enforcement officials which codes are most approptiate for your school s Edit the weapon special circumstances and status code tables the order doesn t matter in School COP 5 Customize the Six Person Specific Code Tables Person Type Race Special Characteristics Grade Involvement and Action Taken Q Run and print the Schoo COP tabular report Code Table Contents All Code Tables to view the contents of these 6 code tables O Discuss and finalize with school and law enforcement officials which codes ate most appropriate for your school s Edit the person type race special characteristics grade involvement and action taken code tables the order doesn t matter in School COP Why Customizing School COP Is Essential Why is it so important to customize School COP Pre defining your code tables before you begin entering data will enable you to enter information about new incidents faster Instead of having to type in information from scratch you can use the code tables to simply click on the desired code Pre defining the code tables helps ensure consistency in the information you enter about each incident Whenever you enter data about a
11. Drag On Too Long Value By identifying cases that have still not been resolved that is discipline or a legal sanction has not yet been determined or if determined not yet imposed you can launch an inquiry into why these cases are still unresolved and bring closure to any that should have been completed Procedure 1 you included Open as one of the possible incident status codes you can conduct a search for all incidents that are still open click Search Incidents on the Main Menu click the Status drop down select Open from the drop down and then click the Search button On the Incident Screen click the Graph button to produce a bar graph showing the number of incidents with a status of Open by month Le the month in which the incident occurred If you notice one ot more incidents that occurred several months ago you can browse to those incidents and examine the details click Exit on the Graph Screen and then use the lt lt and gt gt buttons to browse to the desired incidents X Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 77 10 Compare Problems and Actions Taken among Schools Value If you are a school superintendent you can use School COP to conduct an analysis of how different schools in the same school district differ in terms of the nature and frequency of incidents and the actions the schools have taken to address these incidents With t
12. Related Gang Related and Alcohol Related Incident totals based on the special circumstances might provide critical information for a problem solving effort or simplify reporting to a state or Federal agency Status The status code value indicates where the case now stands At a minimum you should include Open Le the incident is still under investigation and Closed If parents sometimes appeal disciplinary decisions you may wish to add Under Appeal to the code table 66 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Codes Related To Person Attributes Six of the 15 fields of information about a person involved in the incident have associated code tables Person Types The person type code tables allow you to group incidents according to whether a particular type of person was involved in the incident At a minimum person types should include student teacher other school staff and non school person You may wish to be more specific about non school personnel and add such categories as maintenance staff office staff substitute teacher and athletic coach Race The options already included in the Schoo COP race code table reflect those used by the United States Bureau of the Census However you may wish to use designations that are compatible with those used in other databases in your community Special Characteristics The purpose of the s
13. database Activities You can use School COP to track your daily activities that are unrelated to law enforcement such as teaching mentoring and counseling By doing this Schoo COP would contain a more complete record of what you do as well as providing documentation on what services were provided to offenders or victims Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 65 While it is tempting to include kitchen sink in the School COP database special care must be taken to avoid producing erroneous reports In particular you must make certain that non incident records are filtered out of summary incident reports and maps One way to do this is do create a separate severity code for all non incident records Other Codes Related To Incident Attributes Tips for customizing the 3 other code tables related to the incident are summarized below Weapons At a minimum include in the weapon code table generic types of weapons such as gun knife and other as well as none You may wish to enter options in the code table that specify the type of gun for example Gun Handgun and Gun Long Gun State or Federal reporting guidelines may also dictate the specific types of weapon you need to track Special Circumstances The purpose of the special circumstances code table is to enable you to create an additional method for categorizing incidents Possible code values include Drug
14. frequently reported criminal k 48 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems incidents were theft 12 destruction of school property 9 and trespassing 9 When Marquand and DuMaurier examined the narrative comments for these incidents in Schoo COP they found that most students were missing items from lockers and most teachers were missing items from their rooms or desks Several teachers also reported that unknown teenagers were making noise in the halls at or around the time they discovered the missing items With this information as a building block in the problem solving process they moved into the Analysis phase to analyze specific theft property destruction and trespassing incidents Analysis Marquand and DuMaurier decided to approach the analysis phase using two strategies incident data analysis using Schoo COP and interviews with students and teachers to identify suspects First the SRO blocked out two hours of time after school one day to analyze the three identified types of incidents thefts property destruction and trespassing She used Schoo COP to assist in this process by querying the incidents entered into the software over the past year The software allowed her to easily examine the details of all of these incidents DuMaurier found that about 70 percent of the trespassing incidents during the previous semester occurred during lunchtime or soon thereaf
15. lt none gt ME Severty School Rule Vie v A 4 School LeamingHighSchool y lt none gt Any smaller icons on map represent Area Within LHS Building lt gt ell proportionately smaller numbers of incidents School Appendix School COP Screens 93 Administrative Menu The Administrative Menu is the gateway to a number of screens that allow you to define codes and perform other administrative functions Select One of the Following Options Enter Edit Incident Descriptors Enter Edit Person Descriptors Incident Severity Weapon Used Person Type Special Characteristics Incident Type Special Circumstances Grade Level Involvement Types Incident Status Race Actions Taken Enter Edit School and Related Geographic Information System Administration School Information Locations Within Each Area Backup Your Data Authorized Users Areas Within Each School Register Maps Restore Backed Up Data Import New Reports 94 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Incident Severity Code Table Screen This screen shows how you enter incident severity codes Other code table screens ate similar to this one Incident Severity Codes Use this form to enter or edit codes used to describe the severity of a school incident Click Exit to return to the administrative menu FOR MORE INFORMATION U S Depar
16. new incident for each data entry field that is followed by a drop down arrow you have the choice between entering information from scratch in the empty field or clicking the arrow and selecting one of the 60 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems existing codes in the code table However whenever possible you should choose an entry from the options in the code table rather than enter information on your own For example if you do not use Vandalism from the incident code table you or someone else may record the next incident as Malicious Destruction of Property Then when you conduct a search for Vandalism you will miss all the incidents that have been mislabeled as Malicious Destruction of Property Using pre defined codes also protects against misspelling and typographical errors for example recording graffitti instead of graffiti that will prevent you from conducting a thorough search for these incidents Finally different people and even the same person may use different terminology for the same item For example you may refer to the high school as Adams High School while another calls it the Adams and yet another person refers to the high school A search for Adams High School will fail to capture information about the Adams or the high school How to Decide Which Choices to Include in the Code
17. of school violence programs by grade level ranging from peer mediation programs to environmental architectural modifications Fleissner Dan and Fred Heinzelmann Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and Community Policing Washington D C US Department of Justice National Institute of Justice August 1996 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 www ncjrs org This report discusses the respective roles of police residents and government in preventing crime under the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design CPTED community policing approach The approach relies on the SARA problem solving model Green Mary W The Appropriate and Effective Use of Security Technologies in U S Schools Washington D C U S Department of Justice National Institute of Justice September 1999 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 WWNW ncjts org Part I Introduction 13 This 129 page publication provides basic guidelines to law enforcement agencies and school administrators on what security technologies should be considered as they develop safe school strategies The guide discusses commercially available technologies Topic areas include security concepts and operational issues video surveillance weapons detection systems walk through and handheld metal detectors and x ray baggage scanners entry controls and duress alarms
18. of these students and to all school staff By the third week of the second semester the school had implemented all of these strategies Assessment Marquand and DuMaurier s first step as part of the Assessment phase was to establish the following measurable objectives for their initiative for the new semester Decrease the number of individuals found trespassing by 50 percent SSS i Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 53 Reduce the number of incidents involving destruction of property and theft by 50 percent Marquand and DuMaurier used Schoo COP to assess how well their strategies achieved their two goals Performing ongoing analyses throughout the second semester they documented progress in their efforts They compared the results with both the previous semester and with the same semester the previous year PostScript A month into the new semester Marquand and DuMaurier were pleased to find that they had arrested four individuals for trespassing and there was only one reported theft that month At the end of the semester they found that trespassing incidents had declined by 58 percent and thefts by 57 percent compared with the previous semester and by 62 percent and 53 percent respectively compared with the same semester the previous year Interestingly property destruction did not decline nearly as much only 24 percent compared with the previous semester and 15 percent compared with the previ
19. quarterly bulletin the PTA an unusually active group at Lincoln High School agreed to encourage parents to urge their children to report bullying Y All of these efforts would include the message to parents and students that if necessary students could report incidents confidentially that is the person to whom they reported the incident would agree not to reveal their names to anyone else As part of the effort to encourage reporting Madison and Jefferson would distribute a written definition of bullying and the school s new crackdown to every student parent and school staff member With the approval of the teacher s association Madison rearranged faculty monitoring duties to provide more supetvision of the parking lots immediately before and after school Jefferson also decided he would spend more time in the parking lots 42 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems The school psychologist reported that many students who bully actually feel inadequate and use bullying as a means of covering up their feelings of insecurity As a result the principal decided only with parental permission to urge every student caught bullying a second time to agree to counseling with one of the school guidance counselors e The school psychologist agreed to talk with every victim of bullying to discuss effective responses to the behavior and brainstorm what the student might be able to do
20. searches will yield inaccurate results Always use the code tables when entering new incidents Using the code tables when entering new incidents speeds data entry and improves data quality As necessaty update the code tables to reflect changing conditions in your school or to assist in addressing a particular problem Conduct periodic data quality audits You should consider conducting annual or more frequent audits of the quality of your Schoo COP incident data One way to do this is to draw a random sample of incidents print the incident report for each of them and determine each incident s completeness are all fields filled in timeliness how long after the incident occurred were the data entered and accuracy if data were entered into School COP off a hand written incident form do the data elements on the handwritten form match the Schoo COP data APPENDIX ScHooL COP SCREENS x Appendix School COP Screens 83 Appendix School COP Screens The appendix provides an overall Schoo COP road map by showing some of the Schoo COP screens explaining how you navigate from screen to screen and indicating what happens when you click a few of the buttons on the screen For complete information on all screens see the Schoo COP User Manual which is available from the Schoo COP web site Each page in the appendix shows a single Schoo COP screen all school names people and incidents depicted in the
21. Entered By Severity Misdemeanor Status Open Entry Date 7717 00 Diner Narrative Damage done to the computer lab Unknown pertpetrator Reports Incident Reva Graph List Summary Map fe 88 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Quick Map Screen If your search criteria include a school and area and you have assigned a map to the area in Schoo COP you can display the incidents meeting your search criteria on the map This screen shows the location of vandalism incidents occurring inside the school building Note that the size of the icon depends on the number of incidents occurring at the location Incidents mapped Area LHS Building Incident Type Vandalism School Learning High School Learniog High School Appendix School COP Screens 89 Graph Screen After a search is performed the results can be graphed This screen shows the number of vandalism incidents by month occurring inside the school building Graph Type Enter a title for the graph then click Refresh Title use semi colon for line feed Bar Incidents by MonthArea LHS Building Incident Type Vandalism School Learning High School Tide Rotation Degrees fa Incidents by Month Area LHS Building Number of incidents 12 Count By Incident Type Vandalism School Learning High School Month Se
22. P web site www SchoolCOPSoftware com for updates news support tips and other information about School COP The User Manual can also be downloaded from the web site Or contact Tom Rich School COP Project Director Abt Associates Inc 55 Wheeler St Cambridge MA 02138 tom_rich abtassoc com 617 349 2753 voice 617 349 2610 fax Printed M aterials Although the publications identified below do not always address school incidents directly much of the information they provide is applicable in the school setting Community Policing Consortium Understanding Community Policing A Framework for Action Washington D C U S Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance August 1994 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 ww ncjrs org k 12 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems This 69 page monograph defines the core components of community policing provides detailed guidelines for implementing and evaluating a community policing strategy and provides an extensive bibliography of community policing materials Drug Strategies Safe Schools Safe Students A Guide to Violence Prevention Strategies Washington D C Author 1998 Available from Drug Strategies Suite 480 2445 M Street NW Washington D C 20037 202 663 6090 www drugstrategies org This 55 page publication identifies and assesses a large number
23. R 5 CASE STUDY BULLYING CHAPTER 6 CASE STUDY TRESPASSING SSS i Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 23 Chapter 4 The SARA Problem Solving Model for Schools As part of an effort to reduce the high number of ud lum convenience store robberies in Newport News Virginia Oriented Policing in Newport News police officers worked with researchers to develop a problem Washington OC Justice Office of Justice Programs solving model that could be used to address any type of crime Narena fnsti te ot Tastise wnd ot misconduct The result was the SARA model which as Police Executive Research Forum discussed below has four stages Scanning Analysis ER Response and Assessment Since the mid 1980s many other police agencies have adopted the SARA model to guide their problem solving efforts Although the SARA model is not the only way to approach problem solving school personnel will find the model helpful for solving student discipline and crime problems The box and text that follow discuss each of the four SARA steps Chapters 5 and 6 show how School COP can be used in conjunction with the SARA model to help prevent school discipline and crime problems The Four Steps in the SARA Model of Problem Solving Scanning identifying and selecting a problem e g bullying Analysis examining what is causing or permitting the problem e g the bullies insecurity lack of reporti
24. Student Discipline and Crime Problems Customizing School COP A Check List 1 Explore the Schoo COP Sample Database O Use the Schoo COP Sample Database to see how codes are used for entering data doing searches building graphs and producing maps 2 Customize the Geographic Code Tables Q If you want to use the Schoo COP mapping features determine whether your school or schools have maps showing the school building grounds and bus routes Test these maps in Schoo COP see the User Manual for more details Discuss and finalize with school and law enforcement officials how your school s will be divided into areas and which locations will be defined within each area Q Enter your school s in Schoo COP Enter the areas assigned to each school in Schoo COP Enter locations assigned to each area in Schoo COP 3 Customize the Severity and Incident Type Code Tables Q Run and print the Schoo COP tabular report Code Table Contents Incident Type and Severity to view the contents of these two code tables Q Discuss and finalize with school and law enforcement officials which severity and incident codes are most appropriate for your school s Edit the severity code table in Schoo COP Q After the severity code table is finalized edit the incident type code table in Schoo COP 4 Customize the Three Other Incident Specific Code Tables Weapons Special Circumstances and Status Q Run and print the Schoo
25. U S Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Guide to Using COP 0 Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems WWWw cops usdoj goV x Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Prepared for Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 1100 Vermont Ave N W Washington DC 20005 Prepared by Tom Rich Project Director Peter Finn Shawn Ward www cops usdoj gov Acknowledgments iii Acknowledgements The Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems is a collaborative effort While the Guide was primarily completed by the Abt Associates project team other Abt Associates staff COPS Office staff and anonymous peer reviewers contributed to the Guide by proposing text recommending resources and offering suggestions on matters of content format and style Calvin K Hodnett and Veh Bezdikian oversaw the project for the COPS office Contents V Contents Partl Introductie ccna dorado Caco arra A 1 Chapter 1 How to Use This 3 Chapter 2 Overview of School 1 Chapter 3 Additional Sources 11 Information about School 11 Printed 5 Noe MB
26. agitators may receive the most attention most of the conflicts uncovered during the project concerned everyday school interactions e g an insufficient supply of pizza LaVigne Nancy G and John E Eck A Police Guide to Surveying Citizens and Their Environment Monograph Washington D C U S Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance October 1993 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 www ncjrs org This 109 page publication explains the benefits of surveys and then provides detailed information about whom to survey how many individuals to survey what questions to ask and how to analyze the data The report also discusses in detail how to design and conduct environmental surveys for problem solving e g of hot spots including defining the area designing a survey instrument and drawing other data sources Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Problem Solving Tips Washington D C U S Department of Justice 1998 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 www ncjts org This 24 page publication is a guide to reducing crime and disorder through problem solving partnerships Although designed for groups interested in addressing crime in the community the content has considerable applicability in school settings The publication provides an easy to undetstand explanation of the SARA model
27. ain Menu and entering a search criteria On the Incident Screen click the Graph button On the Graph Screen click the Count By dropdown select School and then click Redraw Graph A bar graph showing the number of incidents meeting your search criteria by school is displayed Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 79 Chapter 9 Data Quality Tips Before using Schoo COP you need to take steps to ensure that the data you enter in Schoo COP are complete accurate and timely A number of data quality tips are listed below Establish standards on what type of incidents should be reported If necessary update your school s rule handbook to accurately reflect the types of incidents that must be reported to school administrators or to make sure that the definitions of each incident type are clear and unambiguous If you are using Schoo COP to track incidents at more than one school the schools handbooks should be consistent with reporting Establish standards on what type of incidents should be entered in Schoo COP Before you begin entering incident data in School COP officials at your school including administrators and law enforcement personnel should agree on what types of incidents should be entered in School COP In particular it may not be worth the effort to enter the most minor rule violations For example you may decide not to enter truancy incidents especially if
28. are useful tips for using School COP to help address school discipline and crime problems Each tip is organized into a discussion of the value of the tip followed by the procedure for using Schoo COP to implement the tip Specific screens discussed in this chapter can be seen in the appendix Tips for Using School COP to Help Address Discipline and Crime Problems Use code tables Search narrative fields Track the number of incidents by type over time Search locations and times of incidents Examine students who are victims E E 2 Examine incidents in which teachers or other school personnel are victims 7 Track individual students disciplinary and criminal histories and records of discipline 8 Determine the role if any of race gender and grade level in incidents 9 Make sure cases do not drag on too long 10 Compare problems and actions taken among schools 1 Use Code Tables Value As discussed in chapter 7 using the Schoo COP code tables makes data entry go faster and significantly improves the overall quality of the data Procedure Screens fot entering and editing code tables are accessible from Administrator Menu which is 70 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems displayed by clicking on Administrative Functions on the Main Menu Chapter 7 contains a complete checklist for setting up and using codes 2 Search Narrative Fields Value Y
29. at two of these trespassers had already been caught trespassing at least once the previous semester and another had been caught three times All were caught at lunchtime by teachers and simply told to leave the school immediately because they did not belong there Based on these analyses Marquand and DuMaurier agreed on the following observations 50 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems The thefts and property destruction were occurring primarily between 11 00 a m and 1 00 p m and again after 3 00 p m There had been no witnesses to these two types of incidents but students and teachers alike had seen individuals in the corridors who they knew did not belong there Several students who had been suspended or transferred had been roaming the halls when other students were around Staff had advised them to leave but had never pursued the problem with the SRO or attempted to have them arrested for trespassing Marquand and DuMaurier speculated that the primary problem was not thefts or property destruction as originally thought but rather trespassing They felt that the thefts and property destruction might have been committed by one or more trespassers who could or thought they could blend in during lunchtime and after school when many students were legitimately present in the corridors In short by eliminating trespassing it might be possible to reduce property destructi
30. cal contact e g shoving and 3 involved inapproptiate gestures Finally based on personal observations and on information in School COP regarding actions taken against bullying offenders members of the group discussed what efforts the school had made previously to deal with the problem Members quickly concluded that in the past school personnel who observed the bullying Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 39 typically told the offending student s simply to knock it off Judging by the repeat behavior of the offenders and the large and increasing number of incidents this approach had not worked Identifying stakeholders Madison reassembled the group to identify individuals and types of individuals who would benefit if the problem were reduced and to discuss how the school could enlist the support of these stakeholders in reducing the severity of the problem The group decided that they could expect support from some of the students who had been bullied some of the parents of the victims the Student Council some parents in general including members of the school s active Parent Teachers Association PTA branch and most teachers and other school personnel The group divided up responsibility for contacting each of these stakeholders to find out whether they would support the initiative how they could lend support and what they felt based on the analysis conduc
31. ch papers a searchable database of resources on violence prevention topics consulting on effective strategies and promising model programs for violence prevention and assistance to schools to conduct needs assessments for violence prevention and to evaluate school violence interventions National Alliance for Safe Schools NASS P O Box 290 Slanesville WV 25444 0290 304 496 8100 www safeschools org Founded in 1977 by a group of school security directors this non profit organization was established to provide training technical assistance and publications to school districts interested in reducing school based crime and violence 18 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems National Association of School Resource Officers NASRO P O Box 40 Boynton Beach FL 33425 0040 888 31 NASRO www nasro org A not for profit organization made up of school based law enforcement officers and school administrators that sponsors an annual training conference for School Resource Officers SROs and offers regional training for SROs throughout the country and Canada National School Safety Center NSSC Suite 11 141 Duesenberg Drive Westlake Village CA 91362 805 373 9977 www nsscl org Affiliated with Pepperdine University in Westlake Village California the center was created by presidential directive in 1984 to focus national attention on cooperative solutions to problem
32. chool and other variables and to display the information instantly in tabular reports Display information about incidents graphically line graphs bar charts pie charts including type of incident time of day location school and severity e Identify hot spots that may benefit from increased adult presence electronic surveillance environmental changes or other preventive measures Map where incidents occur 8 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Used properly these features of Schoo COP can significantly facilitate the SARA problem solving process In addition School COP offers other benefits including helping to Investigate incidents Prepare effective visual aides and handouts depicting school safety for meetings with local stakeholders Save time preparing monthly and annual school safety reports Maintain a log of the work you do to help maintain school safety In order to use Schoo COP you need to e Obtain a copy of School COP see chapter 3 Install Schoo COP on your Windows 95 or later personal computer School COP cannot be installed on Macintoshes or other non Windows computers Learn how to use Schoo COP If you are a computer novice plan on spending an hour or two teaching yourself to use School COP by using the Sample Database that comes with the software If you have used other database packages such as Mi
33. crosoft Access you will require much less time to learn Schoo COP Discuss data confidentiality and privacy issues with school administrators and legal counsel Since your Schoo COP database may contain identifying information on juvenile offenders and victims a policy must be established on sharing both aggregate and incident level Schoo COP data Part Introduction 9 Customize School COP for your school s Schoo COP does not force schools to adopt a particular way of categorizing and classifying incidents but instead allows you to customize the software to meet your needs Chapter 7 contains a customization checklist and discusses strategies for customizing Schoo COP Establish policies and procedures to ensure that data you enter in Schoo COP will be complete accurate and timely Chapter 9 contains a number of data quality tips For a more in depth look at Schoo COP the appendix shows a number of Schoo COP s screens Part I Introduction 11 Chapter 3 Additional Sources of Information Below is information about how to obtain the Schoo COP software and assistance using it Following this information is a list of selected printed materials and organizations that can provide additional information about collecting and analyzing data for the purposes of solving problems and about developing effective solutions to problems Information about School COP Visit the School CO
34. ducted law enforcement projects for the U S Department of Justice state and local governments and police agencies and foreign governments For example in 2000 Abt Associates Law and Public Policy Area began a two year process and impact evaluation of School Resource Officer programs nationwide In addition Abt Associates Education and Family Support Area has conducted extensive research related to K 12 students schools and school systems to attendees of the COPS in Schools training conferences sponsored by the COPS Office in 2000 2001 and 2002 The attendees at these conferences are school administrators and School Resource Officers SROs in jurisdictions receiving COPS in Schools grants from the COPS Office However even if you did not attend one of these conferences you will still find the Guide helpful for learning how to get the maximum possible benefit from the problem solving potential of School COP This Guide is divided into 3 parts and 1 appendix Part I explains the purposes and organization of the Guide chapter 1 provides a brief description of Schoo COP chapter 2 and shows how to obtain Schoo COP and additional information on school safety and preventing student misconduct and crime chapter 3 Part II discusses school based problem solving with School COP The widely used and highly effective SARA model for solving problems is summarized chapter 4 and two Part Introducti
35. ecify the incident type and school on the Search Criteria Screen and click Search Then on the Incident Screen click the Graph button 72 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems 4 Search Locations and Times of Incidents Value Certain student behaviors may occur more frequently at certain locations or at certain times of the day or days of the week Some behaviors may occur at certain times of the day at certain locations For example smoking may occur most commonly in the parking lot right after school bullying may occur most commonly in the corridors between classes The value of identifying the locations days of the week and times of day that incidents occur is of course that you can better target your problem solving resources Procedure A quick overview of these factors in the entire Schoo COP database can be obtained by clicking Enter Edit Incidents on the Main Menu and then clicking the Graph button This displays a bar graph showing the number of incidents by month Click the Count By drop down and select Location or Time of Day to graph the incidents by location ot time of day Alternatively you can first select only a subset of the database by clicking Search Incidents on the Main Menu entering a search criteria e g only a particular school or date range and then clicking the Graph button on the Incident Screen If you include a school and area
36. ee 11 A A ER 16 Part Il How To Address Problems with School 21 Chapter 4 The SARA Problem Solving Model for Schools 23 ee 24 es AR gt 25 RESPONSE nn 29 A A eee 30 Chapter 5 Case Study 35 Chapter 6 Case Study TTESDASSING eere hmmm aaa 47 Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 55 Chapter 7 Customizing School 57 51 Tips for Each Code 61 Chapter 8 Usage 69 Chapter 9 Data Quality Tips ee Ie n 79 Appendix School COP Screens ra Res 81 This project was supported by cooperative agreement 2000SHW XK001awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services U S Department of J ustice Points of view or opinions contained within this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U S Department of J ustice PART I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 How TO Use THIS GUIDE CHAPTER 2 OVERVIEW OF SCHOOL COP CHAPTER 3 ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION SSS i Part Introduction 3 Chapter 1 How to UseThis Guide This Guide is designed to help school administrators police officers assigned to a school and non sworn
37. eristics Poy rea LHS Building Person Type 0 Location School rz Incident Type Student ID A Severity Grade Py Weapon Type Contact Information Special Circumstances y Involvement Poy Reported By a Action Taken Type Poy Investigator AAA Action Taken Start Date Status xz Action Taken End Date LO Other Agency Case Comments see note Narrative see note Note Date and time fields can include a dash to indicate a range other fields can include a star as a multiple character wildcard a question mark as a single character wildcard or a pound sign as a single digit wildcard For narrative and comment fields include on either end of keyword drugs Appendix School COP Screens 87 Incident Screen Showing Search Results After a search is performed the results are displayed on the Incident Screen On this screen you can browse through the incidents meeting your criteria or generate summary reports on the incidents School Incidents Search Results earch criteria Area LHS Building Incident Type Vandalism School Leaming High School Incident 203 School Leaming High School Weapon Date 6714 00 Ares ildi Special me LHS Building ance peior Location Cafeteria Reported By m 1400 Incident Vandalism Investigator
38. es only after they felt comfortable with the results of the analysis phase of SARA Their strategies were Make each staff member and SRO in the same geographic cluster of schools awate of students who have been suspended or expelled Encourage staff to notify the SRO so DuMaurier could enforce trespassing laws and threaten to arrest or actually arrest unauthorized individuals roaming buildings Assign an additional staff member to hall duty during lunch period and immediately after school k 52 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Examine the Schoo COP database to identify habitual offenders and related crimes among all the district s secondary schools When a trespasser is identified perform a cursory sweep of the building to identify other crimes he or she may have committed Investigate thoroughly each of the trespassers not charged during the first semester and attempt to interview them to link them to other crimes Warn them that if they trespass again they will be arrested Put up latge signs at evety entrance to the school forbidding trespassing warning suspended and expelled students that they will be treated as trespassers if they appear on school grounds without authorization and warning that trespassers may be arrested and prosecuted Inform every student who has just been suspended or expelled of the new policy Explain the policy to the parents
39. et a print out on all incidents involving a particular person Persons Involved in Incident 202 Use this form to enter or edit information about persons involved in the incident Click Exit to retum to the main incident form Name Last First Person Type Student Date of Birth Gender M al School earning High School y mm dd yy _ Race Student ID Special _ _ Grade 12th Grade y Characteristics Contact Information Involvement In Incident Perpetrator Action Taken Eypulsi Start Date End Date Expuison Fl mm dd yy mm dd yy Comments Reports for This Person lt gt gt gt gt Record 1 of 1 Add New Save Undo Edit Delete Find Exit This Incident All Incidents 86 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Search Screen On the Search Screen you can look for incidents that meet specific criteria In the example below a search is made for all incidents that occurred inside the school building that involve vandalism Specify search criterion see note below in as many fields as desired and then click Search to search the database Incident Fields People Involved Fields Incident Person Name Poy Incident Date Date of Birth y School Year y Gender Incident Time lf sx School Leaming High School Special Charact
40. f insubordination they experienced could not be handled through after school detention The two incidents involving fighting had been isolated cases that involved no serious injury By contrast bullying seemed like a serious problem At a meeting with Frank Jefferson four guidance counselors the assistant principal and the school psychologist the group concluded that the following considerations taken together made a compelling case to tackle the problem of bullying first e The number of bullying incidents was much higher than the number that the principals at the city s other two high schools reported experiencing even though the student body at the other schools was not very different from Lincoln High School s The number of bullying incidents had been increasing steadily from 20 the previous year and 9 the year before that e Bullying was probably wnderreported indeed the School COP data indicated that in all but 4 of the 26 incidents it was school personnel who reported the incident not the victim Furthermore many school personnel failed to report bullying opting instead to handle the incidents on their own e Bullying creates fear and not just among its victims but also among other students who are afraid hey may become victims Indeed the school psychologist reported if allowed to go unchecked in time bullying can set the tone for an entire school Part 11 How To Address Problems with School COP 37
41. hard work If you skip the analysis step you risk wasting valuable resources on a problem that isn t serious or worse doesn t even exist or implementing a strategy that is ineffective because it doesn t address factors that contribute to the problem or has no chance of reducing the severity of the problem In addition to being ineffective the implemented strategy may be considerably more expensive than a strategy that would have been implemented if the analysis step had not been skipped This is sometimes the case with the most traditional crime prevention strategy assigning additional police officers to the problem 26 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems To determine what is causing the misconduct or crime in schools it is important to find out as much as possible about three elements associated with most misconduct and criminal behavior the offender s who are breaking the rules or committing the crime in particular why the individuals are engaging in the behavior the victim s unless the problem does not involve a victim as with graffiti tobacco use drug possession or truancy for example to learn whether repeat victims are involved or the victims are doing something that places them in harm s way and the location where the misconduct or crime is taking place and its timing for example to determine whether certain types of incidents are clustered in a par
42. his information you can make more rational decisions about how to allocate school district safety personnel among schools For example if you have one School Resource Officer who serves all 5 elementary schools but one school has more incidents than the others or more serous incidents or more of the types of incidents that can be prevented by a School Resource Officer you can require the officer to spend more time at this school and less time at the other schools You can also examine whether some schools for example two elementary schools appear to have more success in preventing incidents or certain types of incidents than other elementary schools in the district You can then ask the respective principals to meet to see what they can learn from each other for addressing shared school discipline and crime problems Procedure There ate two general methods for comparing schools First several of the canned reports calculate totals by school e g Incident Totals By School and Incident Type To run one of these reports click Graphs and Tabular Reports on the Main Menu highlight the desired report and click Show Report The second method involves first searching for a specific subset of incidents e g all incidents occurring since the start of the current school year 78 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems by clicking the Search Incidents button on the M
43. hree stakeholders a core group work on the problem throughout the attempt to address it Other more peripheral stakeholders often have something to contribute at specific stages of the effort but not throughout the entire process Identifying Negative Stakeholders It can also be important to identify people and groups that will oppose efforts to address the problem or oppose some of the methods proposed for addressing it For example some local merchants may object to efforts to use plants to monitor the sale of cigarettes or alcohol to minors Some parents may object to increasing their efforts to help prevent their children from breaking school rules Knowing in advance about these attitudes can help you to develop approaches that will not offend these groups Learning about the prevalence and strength of these attitudes will also let you know whether you should try to enlist support for your effort elsewhere to counteract this anticipated opposition to your solution ___ Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 29 Response After you have clearly defined and analyzed the problem you need to develop and implement the most effective response s Review your findings about the offending students victims and incident location and time Then develop creative solutions that will based on your analysis address at least two of these three elements There is a natural tendency to revert to
44. ide Washington D C Authors 2000 Available from the U S Department of Education 877 4ED PUBS www ed gov offices OESE SDFS publications html 16 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems This Guide which is a follow up publication to Early Warning Timely Response A Guide to Safe Schools provides practical steps schools can take to design and implement school safety plans to reduce violence in schools and help children get better access to the services they need The Guide stresses the importance of a three stage comprehensive model that includes prevention early intervention and intensive services US Department of Justice and U S Department of Education Sharing Information A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and Participation in Juvenile Justice Programs Washington D C authors June 1997 Available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service NCJRS 800 851 3420 www ncjrs org This report co sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention U S Department of Justice and the Family Policy Compliance Office US Department of Education is intended for educators law enforcement personnel juvenile justice professionals and community leaders who are interested in developing interagency information sharing agreements to fully involve the schools in a holistic approach to intervention and delinquency preventio
45. in your district Areas In Schoo COP schools are divided geographically into areas The Area designations should be broad for example Adams High School grounds and Adams High School building If you plan on using Schoo COP s mapping features you need to remember that maps are area specific If your high school is a three story building and you have a floor plan of each story you need to define three areas to cover the inside of the building You should also consider making the school bus routes a separate area If students are sometimes involved in incidents while attending school sponsored events off campus you may wish to define an area called Off Campus Locations Within each area you can define specific locations If possible you should define a location for each room including offices and bathrooms in your school building s It is less clear how specific you should be in defining locations in hallways and especially the school grounds For example should a particular parking lot be a single location or should it be divided into several locations If it is important for you to know in which part of the parking lot an incident occurred then define multiple Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 63 locations within the parking lot Alternatively you could define the parking lot as a single location but include more specific information about the location in the incident
46. in your seatch criteria and you have associated a map with the area you can produce a map showing the location of the incidents by clicking the Map button on the Incident Screen 5 Examine Students Who Are Victims Value You can use School COP to identify students who have been victimized several times You can then offer Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 73 these students and their parents counseling or simply practical advice on how to reduce their chances of being revictimized You can also examine whether any of these repeat victims have higher than average rates of absence from school and then discuss with them whether they are not coming to school because they are afraid to Procedure Two of the canned reports click Graphs and Tabular Reports on the Main Menu to display the list of canned reports provide information on victims The report Person List Persons Involved in Multiple Incidents sort the report by Type of Involvement includes persons students as well as non students who were victims in more than one incident The report Person List Persons Involved in Incidents sort the report by Type of Involvement includes all persons students as well as non students who wete victims in at least one incident Each person s type e g student teacher other staff is also listed in this latter report Alternatively click the Search Incidents button on
47. iscipline problems In particular Louise Madison the principal of Lincoln High School has recently heard complaints from a few teachers students and parents about smoking on school grounds bullying insubordination and fighting The newly appointed School Resource Officer SRO Frank Jefferson has also heard concerns about bullying in particular Having found it to be useful in the past Madison decided in March to work with Jefferson to use School COP to address these four problems At Jefferson s recommendation Madison decided to apply the SARA problem solving approach in conjunction with Schoo COP Below is a description of how Madison and Jefferson went about conducting each of the four SARA phases Scanning Analysis Response and Assessment Scanning Frank Jefferson began by searching the Schoo COP database for each of the four problems and documented that during the current school year from September through February there had been 20 cases of smoking 26 bullying incidents 84 instances of insubordination and 2 fights Madison felt she did not have the time to tackle all four problems at the same time She felt that smoking and 36 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems insubordination while unacceptable were victimless behaviors in the sense that they did not result in harm to other students Few teachers and other school personnel felt that the type o
48. jective X Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 47 Chapter 6 Case Study Trespassing Chapter 6 contains a case study involving trespassing that illustrates how School COP can be used in conjunction with the SARA model to help address problems in schools As with chapter 5 the case study is also hypothetical and uses fictitious names Northledge High School is a big city school with 842 students and 79 faculty Northledge was experiencing a rash of thefts and destruction of school property during the first semester of the school year As a result Philip Marquand the principal and Rachel DuMaurier the School Resource Officer SRO met late in the first semester to discuss these problems They decided to move through the SARA problem solving process in an attempt to understand more fully the extent of the problems and develop responses that would be effective in preventing them Scanning Marquand and DuMaurier used two approaches to the scanning process They examined data in Schoo COP to identify the problem incidents more accurately They looked at the Narrative sections of the incidents in School COP to see if the text offered clues regarding who might be committing the crimes DuMaurier used Schoo COP to identify the most frequent types of incidents that had occurred at the high school over the past six months Excluding some of the non criminal or school rule violations the most
49. mment about an injury the Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 71 recommended search criteria is injur rather than injury using injur finds narratives with either the word injury or the word injuries 3 Track the Number of Incidents by Type over Time Value You can use School COP to track changes in the number of incidents by type over time in one or more schools You can then target for extra attention incidents that appear to be increasing over time Procedure There are several methods for doing this The easiest involves clicking the Graphs and Tabular Reports button on the Main Menu and then selecting the report titled Incident Totals By School and Incident Type Enter the date range you want to examine e g from the start of the current school year to today s date Click Show Report and print the results Then re run and print this same report using the same time period in the previous year e g from the start of the previous school year to one year ago today Alternatively you could compare the past two months to the prior two month period Examine the two printouts and look for increases in specific incident types at specific schools Once you identify an incident type that appears to be increasing at a particular school you can create a bar graph that shows totals for this incident type by month To do this click Search Incidents on the Main Menu Sp
50. n The report explains how to share information while still complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act FERPA Organizations Center for the Study of Prevention of Violence University of Colorado at Boulder Campus Box 442 Boulder CO 80309 0442 303 492 8465 www colorado edu cspv The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence CSPV was founded in 1992 with a grant from the Part I Introduction 17 Carnegie Corporation of New York to provide informed assistance to groups committed to understanding and preventing violence particulatly adolescent violence The center has published reports on Prevent Bullying and Training School Personnel in Crime Prevention Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence George Washington University 2121 K Street NW 200 Washington DC 20037 1830 202 496 2200 www hamfish org The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention U S Department of Justice funded the institute in 1997 to serve as a national resource to test the effectiveness of school violence prevention methods and develop more effective prevention strategies The institute works with staff of a consortium of seven universities to determine what works and what can be replicated to reduce violence in schools The institute provides current information and analyses about school violence levels and trends throughout the Nation literature reviews resear
51. n you can assess which punishments appear to have been effective in preventing each type of misbehavior and determine what will be the most appropriate action to take in response to the student s next infraction In this manner you can help address the problem of a particular student s behavior rather than trying to help prevent a type of incident that more than one student is committing Procedure Click on Search Incidents on the Main Menu click on the Person Name drop down list and select the name of the person Click the Search button and then click the Enter Edit People Involved button on the Incident Screen to display information pertaining to this person for this particular incident if the incident contains more than hr Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 75 one person involved record you may need to browse to the desired person on the Person Involved Screen Click the All Incidents button to obtain a printed report of all the incidents in which this particular person has been involved Alternatively select Graphs and Tabular Reports on the Main Menu and select the report Person List Persons Involved in Incidents using Person Name as the sort order 8 Determine the Role if any of Race Gender and Grade Level in Incidents Value If you believe that a disproportionate number of offenders or victims may involve students of a certain racial group gender or g
52. n selecting a problem or problems to focus on first you may want to take the following considerations into account the nature and severity of the damage the problem is causing such as whether and to what extent it V physically harms other students or teachers e g assaults creates fear among other students or teachers e g bullying V costs money e g vandalism or Y disrupts normal activities e g false fire alarms x Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 25 the extent of community and parental concern about the problem and the degree of support that is likely to exist for addressing it interest among teachers other staff and students in addressing the problem and the potential for reducing the severity of the problem Analysis This phase in the SARA process involves three steps determining what is causing the problem enlisting help in analyzing the problem and identifying individuals with a personal stake stakeholders in seeing the problem addressed Determine What Is Causing the Incidents You will not be able to develop a tailor made response to the problem unless you know what is causing it or permitting it to occur However there is usually a temptation to skip this phase of the SARA model because the nature of the problem may seem obvious there may be considerable pressure to address it immediately and analyzing it may not only take time but also require
53. n your Schoo COP database or collect and analyze additional information Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 33 Sample Measures That Cannot Demonstrate That A Problem Solving Effort Has Reduced A School Discipline Problem Many measures commonly used to evaluate problem solving efforts are not in fact capable of demonstrating that the problem has been reduced Using the bullying example the following information would show whether an anti bullying effort has been effective Ninety two percent of the entire student body attended an assembly on bullying run by a psychologist Every homeroom teacher devoted 30 minutes of an extended homeroom to discussing bullying e Most teachers and all school security personnel were trained in how to identify bullying and the importance of reporting every case of bullying e The new anti bullying policy was distributed to every faculty member Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 35 Chapter 5 Case Study Bullying This chapter contains a case study involving bullying that illustrates how S choo COP can be used in conjunction with the SARA model to help address problems in schools The case study is hypothetical and uses fictitious names Lincoln High School located in a suburb of a large Mid Western city has 1 273 students and 114 faculty The school does not have a serious crime problem but has experienced its share of d
54. narrative Severity and Incident Code Tables Severity In Schoo COP severity is used to indicate the relative seriousness of the incident Tip because you assign a severity code to each incident type be sure to enter your severity code table entries before entering your incident type code table entries Depending on whether you are a school administrator or law enforcement officer you may want to define severity according to your administrative code e g minor school rule violation vs expellable offenses or the criminal code e g misdemeanor vs felony If you plan to use School COP to enter information that is not related to incidents e g observations mentoring activities you could also define a severity code called non incident Incident Types Schoo COP comes installed with an incident type code table that contains 24 entries that range from serious crimes e g homicide to non criminal school rule violations e g defiance You should read this list carefully and decide whether it meets your needs In particulat you may wish to add some types of incidents because they happen frequently at your school s or because while uncommon they represent a problem that you wish to address For example Graffiti may be a particular type of vandalism that occurs with frequency at your school s and is a problem you feel you could prevent if you had a better capacity to analyze it If so you should add Graffiti to
55. ncident narrative Another tip is to align your codes with categories on summary reports that you are required to submit to your supervisor or other agencies In general the best way to customize the code tables is for the school law enforcement and non sworn security staff to collaboratively review the code tables and systematically decide what information should be included in each table Tips for Each Code Table The discussion below offers tips on customizing each of the code tables The order of the discussion the geographic code tables the severity and incident code tables other incident specific code tables and person specific code tables follows the checklist presented earlier in this chapter 62 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Geographic Code Tables Schools For all but the largest school districts it is a simple matter to enter the names of all your district s schools in the School COP school code table However the more important issue is whether you will or are able to collect incident data from all the schools or from just one or two of them If you are a high school assistant principal your only interest may be to analyze incidents that occur in your school By contrast if you ate an assistant superintendent you may wish to compare incidents among all the schools in the district In particular you may wish to compare incidents among the high schools
56. ng by victims parental tolerance or helplessness and identifying resources for help with solving the problem Response designing and implementing a solution to the problem based on analysis e g providing schoolwide education regarding bullying counseling students who bully working with the parents of bullies Assessment evaluating whether the response reduced the severity of the problem 24 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Scanning Scanning involves identifying and selecting a problem In the SARA model a problem is known informally as two or more incidents that are similar in one or more ways and that are Of concern to the police and the community In the school setting a problem can involve certain types of behavior e g bullying occur at specific locations e g the school cafeteria involve a single person or types of persons e g suspected gang members and occur during specific events e g football games Of course you may already know what the serious discipline and crime problems are in your school s However Schoo COP will help you determine accurately and document just how widespread each problem is and what its principal characteristics are Once you have identified the discipline ot crime problems in your school s you will need to prioritize them since it is unlikely you have the time or resources to tackle all of them at once I
57. on 5 case studies on using the SARA model and Schoo COP are presented one on bullying chapter 5 and the other on trespassing chapter 6 Part III discusses how best to set up and use Schoo COP for problem solving Topics include customizing School COP chapter 7 tips for using School COP chapter 8 and tips for enhancing data quality chapter 9 The appendix shows a number of the Schoo COP screens and provides an overall view of the application s look and feel Part I Introduction 7 Chapter 2 Overview of School COP School COP is a software application developed by Abt Associates Inc with funding from the National Institute of Justice School COP enables you to Record extensive data about student misconduct and crime more quickly than can be done by writing it down Help ensure consistency in the information you record because the software prompts you to enter specific types of information from lists of choices e Simplify the task of reporting information about incidents to school superintendents and school committees Keep easily retrieved records regarding each student s disciplinary and criminal history in terms of types of misconduct and crimes and actions taken in response to each previous incident Identify students and faculty who appear to be repeatedly victimized by other students e Conduct searches of misconduct and crime by type of incident location month s
58. on and theft Marquand and DuMaurier identified several groups that would benefit if the severity of the three problems was reduced the students whose property had been stolen parents of students whose property had been stolen and teachers and other school personnel who had property stolen or might be victimized in the future The principal and SRO discussed how the school could enlist the support of these stakeholders in addressing the problem x Part 11 How To Address Problems with School COP 51 They divided up responsibility for contacting representatives of each of these stakeholders to find out whether they would support the initiative how they could lend support and what they felt would be effective and acceptable solutions to the problems Response Marquand and DuMaurier knew that since school administrators and School Resource Officers must make decisions that may come under fire from the community it was important to have a detailed analysis to buttress the solutions they formulated Since Schoo COP is an analytical tool for collecting and analyzing information to identify problems and investigate incidents they used the information the software program provided to justify specific responses to the problems The SRO and principal made a significant effort to log all of their analyses and document their conversations with students and faculty They then announced their specific strategi
59. ou can automatically search anything you include in the narrative about an incident or about any person involved in the incident For example you can search the database for all incidents whose narrative includes the word necklace Given this search option whenever you enter a new incident it is important that you add narrative that includes information not recorded elsewhere in the incident database if you anticipate you might want to search for the information in the future For example you might want to add narrative that addresses the injuries that resulted from a fight e g broken bone laceration bruise bloody nose the involvement of the school nurse after an incident involving an injury and the nature of a bullying incident e g racial or ethnic slurs antigay comments shoving sexual comments Procedure Click the Search Incidents button on the Main Menu then type in the word or words you wish to search for preceded and followed by an asterisk e g broken bone in either the Narrative or Comments field and then click the Search button Note that proper use of the asterisk which means any number of characters when searching narratives is critical In the above example entering the search criteria broken bone i e without the asterisks will find only those incidents whose narrative contains only the words broken As another example if you want to find all incidents whose narrative includes a co
60. ous year Marquand and DuMaurier concluded that the thefts that had occurred the first semester and previous year were apparently related to the trespassing both types of crime declined by about the same amount as a result of their anti trespassing initiative It appeared that their careful analysis of a possible relationship between trespassing and theft bore fruit by targeting trespassers they significantly reduced the number of thefts By contrast the assessment results suggested that trespassers were not the principal individuals destroying school property 54 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems As a result the principal and SRO agreed that their next task would be to use Schoo COP and the SARA problem solving approach to see if they could achieve the same success with property destruction that they had achieved with trespassing and theft PART Ill How To SET UP AND Use SchooL COP FOR EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING CHAPTER 7 CUSTOMIZING SCHOOL COP CHAPTER 8 USAGE TIPS CHAPTER 9 DATA QUALITY TIPS hr Part Ill How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 57 Chapter 7 Customizing School COP Before starting to use Schoo COP you need to customize School COP to meet your particular needs The software allows you to enter codes for a number of attributes related to incidents e g incident type and location and to persons involved in inciden
61. p 1999 Oct 1999 Nov 1999 Dec 1999 Jan 2000 Feb 2000 Mar 2000 Apr 2000 May 2000 Jun 2000 Jul 2000 Sep 2000 Oct 2000 Nov 2000 Dec 2000 Jan 2001 Feb 2001 Aug 2000 90 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems List of Canned Graphs and Tabular Reports School COP comes with many pre formatted graphs and tabular reports that produce lists aggregate totals and other calculations Graph and Tabular Report Selection Screen Click on the desired report and provide a title date range and sort order Then click Show Report Available Graphs and Reports Incident Totals By School and Status a Incident Totals By School and Weapon Incident Totals By School and Year Incident Totals By School Year Incident Totals By School Area and Location Incident Totals By Severity Incident Totals By Special Circumstances Incident Totals By Status Incident Totals By Weapon Incident Totals By Year Person List Action Taken List Person List Persons Involved in Incidents Person List Persons Involved in Multiple Incidents Person List Persons Receiving Multiple Actions Taken Person Totals By Action Taken Person Totals By Action Taken and Grade 1 Parameters Report Title Person List Action Taken List Date Range From 171700 To 2 2 01 Sort By incident Number y Retum to Main Menu Tabular Report Print Preview Screen Tabular re
62. pecial characteristics code table is to allow you to create your own method for categorizing persons involved in incidents Tip be sure not to confuse special characteristics with special circumstances which relate to the incident You could select special characteristics that help with a particular problem solving effort or that simplify reporting to state or Federal agencies Grade The grade code table included with School COP contains kindergarten through Grade 12 Depending on your school you may wish to add other grade codes Involvement The involvement code table includes the possible ways in which a person could be involved in an incident This highlights an important difference between KXx Part 111 How To Set Up and Use School COP for Effective Problem Solving 67 School COP and school discipline reporting systems which typically record information only about the student being disciplined By contrast with Schoo COP you can also record information about victims witnesses and suspects Action Taken Depending on whether you are a school administrator or law enforcement officer you may want to define action taken codes according to your administrative code e g suspended expelled the criminal code e g arrested on probation or both e g expelled and arrested Your action taken codes can also reflect multiple administrative actions for example counseling and suspension
63. percent reduction compared with the same period the previous school year This exceeded the school s goal of a 50 percent reduction Two students who were bullied during the eight months following implementation were bullied again While not quite meeting the goal that the school established this still represents a substantial improvement over the previous yeat Six of the 9 bullying incidents that occurred during involved threats physical contact or inappropriate gestures No marked improvement was achieved in this measure During the eight month period only 2 students who bullied other students repeated the behavior which met the school s objective An increasing proportion of the bullying incidents that came to the school s attention were the result of victims or other students reporting the problem compared with the previous school year 4 of the 9 this year versus 4 of 26 the yeat before a Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 45 Fourteen of the 27 students involved in bullying as offenders or victims agreed to counseling thus meeting the objective of one half the offenders agreeing to counseling During the school year 3 of the students who were victims of bullying missed school following the incident This did not meet the school s objective but still represented an improvement over the previous year No student who missed school missed more than one day This did meet the school s ob
64. ports can be previewed and if desired printed This screen shows a report that lists students that received a suspension or some other disciplinary action Person List Action Taken List Incident Number Incident Type 102 Drug Possession 102 Drug Possession 103 Disorderly Conduct 104 Fighting 104 Fighting 105 Tobacco 106 Breaking amp Entering 109 Vandalism 110 Sex Offenses 113 Alcohol Name Student ID Hlinka Josh 12345 Mendes Mike 432 Dargelis Andrew James Kiki Eldredge Elizabeth Eldredge Beth Nunnally Jon Delvalle Dave Soule Jeremy Sennett Debbie School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Leaming High School Page 1 of 4 Adjust Ik gt Repot ial Pint Car Page Pint Al Pages Exit Appendix School COP Screens 91 fe 92 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Mapping Screen School COP includes a general purpose mapping screen on which multi layer maps can be built Mapping Screen uc Learning igh School 1 Pick Incident Type Number of 2 Pick Date and Time Range aliments El EH SR Date 171700 to 2 2 01 Time D to po Display Other Maps Zoom To Severity Felony yi e 3 a Pee Geka eed Ane
65. rade level you can test your hypothesis using Schoo COP If your suspicion in confirmed you can then obtain additional information relevant to the discrepancy through for example interviews with the involved students victims witnesses and school personnel or through closer examination of the information already contained in Schoo COP to learn why there is a pattern of misbehavior or victimization for individual students that appears to reflect their race ethnicity gender or grade level This information may help you to develop effective steps to reduce the problem behavior For example if you find that certain types of incidents appear to be racially motivated you can consider holding cultural diversity classes for the involved or all students Procedure Click the Search Incidents button on the Main Menu On the Search Criteria Screen click the race gender or grade level drop down and then select a value from the drop down list You can also 76 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems enter a date range or select a school to narrow the search After you click the Search button the number of incidents matching the search criteria is displayed On the Incident Screen click the Graph button to see a bar graph showing the number of incidents by month meeting the criteria Repeat this procedure for different races genders or grade levels 9 Make Sure Cases Do Not
66. responses that other school systems have used Although it can be very useful to learn how other communities have successfully addressed similar problems you need to exercise caution in adopting off the shelf solutions unless the situations are strikingly similar The key to developing tailored responses is making sure the responses are very focused and directly linked to the findings from the analysis phase of the SARA problem solving process Assessment School administrators and safety personnel may be reluctant to evaluate their efforts They may lack the time or expertise be concerned about confidentiality or be apprehensive that the results may show that their efforts failed However assessing an initiative s success is essential for determining whether to continue revamp or jettison it In addition many supervisors including superintendents and school committees want convincing evidence that a school s efforts to address a disciplinary or crime problem have succeeded To evaluate a problem solving initiative it is first necessary to establish the objectives the effort is designed to achieve These objectives need to be specific and measurable Often it may appear that the objectives are obvious eliminate bullying for example However rarely are the objectives as clear cut as they may first seem First it is important to realize that problem solving efforts rarely result in the total elimination of a problem Second as
67. riminal behavior Interview other school staff or individuals e g bus drivers custodial staff local businesspeople that may have information about the problem Identify Stakeholders for the Problem Selected Stakeholders are individuals and types or groups of people that will benefit if the problem is addressed Stakeholders may include a particular type of student e g girls gays nonathletes athletes minorities teachers or particular types of teachers e g women other school personnel e g athletic coaches when star athletes are suspended parents of victims parents of offending students residents who live near the school s 28 Guide to Using School to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems owners and employees of businesses located near the school s school district superintendent or school committee members e g concerned about negative publicity civil suits school officials at other schools and school systems e g if problems occur during away football games local police and juvenile court e g concerned with students under supervision and potential new referrals Enlisting the support of these stakeholders can help substantially with analyzing the problem and devising implementing and building support for the solution However some communities have found that problem solving efforts progress most efficiently if only two or t
68. s that disrupt the educational process The center places special emphasis on efforts to rid schools of crime violence and drugs and on programs to improve student discipline attendance and achievement The center works with local school districts and communities to develop customized safe school training and planning programs and it serves as a clearinghouse for information on school safety issues maintaining a resource center with more than 50 000 articles publications and films The center publishes nine annual issues of the School Safety Update an annual School Safety Yearbook and special reports and books on school safety related topics The center wrote Combating Fear and Restoring Safety in Schools for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention x Part Introduction 19 North Carolina Center for the Prevention of School Violence Suite 140 313 Chapanoke Road Raleigh NC 27603 800 299 6054 www ncsu edu cpsv The center is a resource for information program assistance and rescarch about school violence prevention The center prepared a report School Resource Officers What We Know What We Think We Know What We Need to Know for the U S Department of Justice The center provides statistics on school violence and information about grants for combating school violence PART Il How To ADDRESS PROBLEMS WITH SCHOOL COP CHAPTER 4 THE SARA ProBLEM SOLVING ODEL FOR SCHOOLS CHAPTE
69. sessing the impact of a problem solving effort may require using nontraditional measures for determining effectiveness For example with regard to bullying you might identify at least five different types of positive results Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 31 Reduce the number of incidents involving bullying Less serious or less harmful incidents Quicker discontinuation of the behavior by offending students Improved methods of handling of bullying incidents by school personnel and School personnel who are better equipped to handle bullying problems in the future Below are several illustrations of specific measures that would demonstrate whether an effort to address bullying has been effective There have been 4 bullying incidents during the past three months compared with 10 incidents duting the previous three months Before the problem solving effort was initiated 8 of 10 students victimized by bullies over the previous six months wete bullied again within a two month period Since the effort was initiated four months ago only 1 of 4 victimized students has reported being bullied again Eight of the 10 bullying incidents that occurred during the last three months involved only verbal abuse whereas during the previous three months 8 of 15 incidents involved threats and 7 of the 15 involved either physical contact e g shoving or gestures e g giving the finger
70. t the extent to which the school should air its dirty laundry in public as the assistant principal put it that is tell the world that the school had a bullying problem The group came up with the following responses One of the things the group learned from the offenders was that they frequently felt they could get away with bullying because most victims are afraid to report it The group therefore recommended that the school take the following steps to encourage reporting Y The principal and SRO would make a joint presentation to the school committee at its monthly meeting in the new school year which was carried by the local cable TV station encouraging parents to urge their children report instances of bullying Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 41 Y guidance counselor and school psychologist would meet with the English department head to ask her to have her teachers devote a class during the first month of the Fall semester to a discussion on bullying Y Ata schoolwide faculty meeting in the Fall Madison and Jefferson would ask all teachers to be on the lookout for bullying and to report even minor or ambiguous incidents to the SRO or assistant principal before the end of the day or first thing the following morning V The assistant principal and the SRO would meet with the Student Council to ask it to become involved in reporting any bullying incidents Y At meetings and through its
71. ted would be effective and acceptable solutions to the bullying problem The group decided that presenting a united front by all school personnel including district level administrators would be the best way to overcome or neutralize any potential opposition that might develop to the initiative among parents of students caught bullying or among other patents Finally based on everything it had learned the group came up with a definition of bullying Defining the problem clearly and with numerous concrete examples was extremely important 40 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems to be able to assess later whether the solutions the school implemented to address it were effective Just as important the group wanted students and parents to know exactly what kinds of behavior represented bullying so that no one when confronted could argue that their behavior was just teasing flirting or horse play The SRO was particularly helpful in distinguishing between assault sexual harassment and bullying Response A month later in May the group met one mote time to discuss the specific steps the school could take to address the bullying problem The group agreed that it would be best to implement strategies early in the fall after the new school year had begun since there were less than two months remaining in the current school year The liveliest discussion was abou
72. ter or immediately after school let out So she performed an additional search query to identify all incidents in the past year that occurred during lunchtime Part Il How To Address Problems with School COP 49 and after school DuMaurier found out that 5 of the trespassing incidents occurred on the same day as graffiti incidents two happened on the same day as other property destruction and six occurred on the same day as thefts from lockers The SRO performed additional analyses and documented her findings In the second part of the Analysis phase the principal assistant principal and SRO interviewed selected staff and students Staff gave specific information about belongings that had disappeared from their rooms during lunch Some teachers also reported seeing up to three different students about 17 years old making noise outside their rooms during the period after lunch and sporadically throughout the afternoon Students who had been victimized also reported having their lockers broken into in the early afternoon The interviewed students revealed a great deal once they were asked about whether they thought trespassers might have been responsible for some of these incidents A few of the students personally identified four students they had seen roaming the halls during lunch who had either been suspended or transferred to another school for discipline problems Going back to Schoo COP DuMaurier found th
73. the Main Menu click the Involvement drop down and select Victim click Type drop down and select Student and then click the Search button This will identify all the incidents in which a student was victimized You can then browse these incidents to learn mote about the incidents or click Graph to see the number of these incidents by month You can also narrow the search by adding other search criteria on the Search Criteria screen such as specific incident types e g battery severity e g felony and school Of area k 74 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems 6 Examine Incidents in which Teachers and Other School Personnel Are Victims Value By conducting a search for all incidents involving school staff you can determine where and when these incidents occur As a result you may be able reduce the problem by implementing solutions that reflect the time and place of these incidents For example if most teacher assaults occur in the parking lot after school you and your SARA problem solving task force can initiate appropriate responses to address this problem Procedure Use the same procedure that is outlined above in Tip 5 7 Track Individual Students Disciplinary Histories With School COP you can identify the disciplinary and criminal history of any student along with the discipline ot legal sanction if any imposed for each incident With this informatio
74. the incident type code table so that you can distinguish graffiti from vandalism which is already in the incident type code table k 64 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems Your school s may have an occasional problem with thefts from school lockers that although infrequent are very troublesome when they do occur and might be preventable If so you could consider creating a new incident type Theft from Lockers and changing the incident type Theft to Theft Other If shaking down students for lunch money is a problem you can add Lunch Money Shakedowns to the list of incidents Otherwise this type of incident may go unrecorded or may be included as a type of Bullying or Theft making it almost impossible for you to use School COP to analyze the problem While Schoo COP was designed for entering and analyzing information about school related disciplinary and crime incidents it is also possible to enter non incident related information School Resource Officers SROs in particular may be interested in entering Observations Most law enforcement computer systems have modules for entering field interview FT cards which typically document a conversation between a law enforcement officer and a suspected offender In Schoo COP you could create an incident type called field interview You may find that this helps Schoo COP become more of an intelligence
75. they are already entered in your attendance system Incident types that you decide not to enter should zv be listed in the incident type code table see chapter 7 Whatever your decision the standard should be consistently enforced to avoid producing misleading summary reports showing totals by incident type Prior to implementing Schoo COP consider initiating a campaign to encourage incident reporting by students teachers and staff This will help minimize the effects of varying reporting rates on incident totals and help produce a School COP database that more accurately depicts school safety conditions k 80 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems e Make one person responsible for making sure all the information is collected that is entered into Schoo COP in a timely and thorough fashion While other individuals may be required to share in entering the data this one person must be responsible for seeing to it that these other people follow through If possible directly enter incident data in Schoo COP rather than first filling out a paper incident form Directly entering data saves time and improves data quality After the data are entered you can print the Schoo COP incident report if you need a hard copy record of the incident Enter data in Schoo COP as soon as possible after the incident occurred Delays in entering the data increase the chances that reports and
76. ticular location or locations and identify whether and how these locations may be conducive to allowing these incidents to occur These three elements are also referred to as the three sides of the Crime Triangle Identify Resources that Can Help Analyze the Problem A number of resources can assist you in getting the information about the problem that will enable you to analyze it properly e School COP can provide a wealth of data that you can obtain through searches graphic displays and mapping ranging from finding out with whom a student has been misbehaving to tracking repeat victimization hr Part 11 How To Address Problems with School COP 27 Police officers assigned to schools such as School Resource Officers have often been trained in the SARA or other problem solving approaches Consult with them If these individuals do not have training in problem solving it may be possible to confer with other local law enforcement officers especially juvenile officers who specialize in using problem solving to address specific crime problems Implement one of the many published crime environment surveys to systematically assess the physical environment of the locations where the incidents are occurring see chapter 3 Interview the offending students and their victims For example the offending students may provide important information about how they select their victims or choose locations for their misconduct or c
77. tment of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 1100 Vermont Avenue NW Washington D C 20530 To obtain details on COPS programs call the U S Department of Justice Response Center at 1 800 421 6770 Visit the COPS internet web site by the address listed below e08011233 Created Date September 20 2001 www cops usdoj gov
78. to help avoid or respond to a repeat incident Madison would inform students and parents that the school would sake more stringent action against students who repeatedly bullied other students than had been taken in the past including suspension and in intractable cases referral to juvenile court Assessment Madison and Jefferson s first step in evaluating whether these responses were successful was to engage the group in deciding what it expected these strategies to accomplish Together the group came up with the following measurable objectives There will be no more than 13 incidents of bullying from October through May following implementation of the strategies that is at least a 50 percent reduction during this period compared with the same period the previous school yeat No student who is bullied during the eight months following implementation will be bullied again X Part 11 How To Address Problems with School COP 43 No more than 4 of the up to 13 bullying incidents that occur during the eight months after implementation will involve threats physical contact or inappropriate gestures During the eight month period no more than 2 students who bully will repeat the behavior An increased proportion of the bullying incidents that come to the school s attention will be the result of victims ot other students reporting the problem compared with the previous school yeat O
79. traditional responses to address each new problem for example assigning more police officers or increasing sanctions against students Having relied on traditional responses in the past it is only natural that you might gravitate toward these same approaches to address problems in the future even if these responses have not been especially effective or sustainable over the long term However creative responses that go beyond traditional response may have a greater effect in reducing the problem The box suggests a number of nontraditional responses that might be effective in helping to prevent certain types of incidents Illustrative Nontraditional Responses to Student Misconduct Changing the physical environment e g installing improved lighting in the parking lot Installing video monitors or convex mirrors Working with parents to help their children to discontinue their misconduct or criminal behavior or to avoid being revictimized Instituting mandatory small classes not assemblies on specific problem areas such as bullying graffiti or racial conflict Instituting conflict resolution or cultural diversity training Implementing a mediation program Establishing with others in the community a teen court 30 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems School administrators like administrators in other organizations are often tempted to implement programs or
80. ts e g how they were involved and what action if any was taken against them Overview School COP allows you to enter a lot of information about new incidents occurring in your school s Specifically there are 18 fields of information related to the incident and 15 fields of information related to each person involved in the incident In some of these fields you just type in the information For example you must type in the date and time when the incident occurred and any narrative comments about the incident But in other fields rather than typing in text you can select a code from a previously entered list of code values For example before entering any incident data you can enter all the possible codes you want for the incident type e g trespassing bullying Then when you enter a new incident instead of typing in the name of the incident type you just pick the incident type from the list of incident type codes In School COP you can access any of the screens for the code tables by clicking the Administrative Functions on the Main Menu see the appendix On the Administrative Menu there are a series of buttons one for accessing each code table Many of these code tables already have some codes in them using the discussion in this chapter as a guide you should add or delete codes from each code table so that School COP is customized to meet your needs 58 Guide to Using School COP to Address
81. ver half the offenders and victims of bullying will agree to counseling During the school yeat less than 25 percent of the students who are victims of bullying will miss any school days following the incident and no student who does miss school will miss more than one day Madison asked Jefferson to track these results The assistant principal and guidance counselors then met to discuss how they needed to further customize School COP to make sure they collected all the information they would need to conduct the evaluation and to make sure they could search for and compile the information easily Postscript In September of the following school yeat Lincoln High School implemented all but one of the strategies the group had recommended be adopted The English department head pointing out that her department was always the one asked to take time away from its curriculum to address these types of problems was reluctant to require her teachers to 44 Guide to Using School COP to Address Student Discipline and Crime Problems devote a class to bullying and convinced the principal to make it voluntary In her report to the Superintendent of Schools in June Madison was pleased to inform her that the solutions the school had implemented had significantly reduced the frequency of bullying Specifically There were only 9 incidents of bullying from October through May following implementation of the strategies a 66

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