The criminalization of school discipline and its resulting consequences for students, particularly students of color, has been widely studied. While results from previous research have shown racial and gender differences in punitive school experiences like suspension, school-based arrest, and school-based referrals to juvenile justice systems,…

Threat assessment has been proposed as a method for schools to respond to student threats of violence that does not rely on exclusionary discipline practices (e.g., suspension, transfer, expulsion, arrest). The present study compared disciplinary consequences for 657 students in 260 schools using the Comprehensive Student Threat Assessment…

The present study examined variations in incidents of student insubordination and violence using an individual change model, which allowed for repeated observations of student behaviors in 148 Ohio schools at the initial status (2010) and over time (2010 and 2014). Findings were significant only at the initial status. As school size and total…

A common response to school violence features the use of security measures to deter serious and violent incidents. However, a second approach, based on school climate theory, suggests that schools exhibiting authoritative school discipline (i.e., high structure and support) might more effectively reduce school disorder. We tested these approaches…

In this commentary on the special series, I argue that whereas a zero-tolerance approach to school discipline is "something stupid" (Kauffman & Brigham, 2000) the use of suspension might not be. Despite its limitations, suspension and other forms of punishment serve as effective deterrents of behavior problems for most children, especially when…

Focus group methods for studying opinions and perceptions of school violence are effective for understanding differences among individuals, but cannot report these differences in a concise manner. Traditional quantitative methods for analyzing data from school violence perception surveys allow for the concise reporting of data, but cannot…