The Role of Threat Assessment in a School's Security Assessment

Threat Assessment: A Vital Key to Safe Schools

If you were to ask a school administrator or teacher to name a student they know who might commit an act of violence in their school, they will usually have a name immediately spring to mind.  Yet often, there is little done to address that name.

What needs to be completed is a threat assessment process, one that is evidence-based, thorough, and comprehensive.  The FBI has developed such a process, a tool to assist in the process, and the best news for most schools; it's free!

This process outlines a variety of traits of concern.  These traits can range from comments and writings that show an obsession with violence to attitudes of intolerance and superiority, as well as the development of negative role models such as Adolf Hitler or Satan.  The key to this approach is that the assessment is done using a multidisciplinary approach, using information developed by those who actually know the student.

It takes time, but it does provide detailed information about a student that the school can then use to assist the student.  What the assessment doesn't do is identify a student as a "shooter", nor is the assessment used as a means of removing a student from school.

It is necessary to make time to do this, especially for that child whose name popped into your head.

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