Community Organizations' Involvement In School Safety Planning: Does It Make A Difference In School Violence?

Abstract

It is highly suggested by researchers, authors and government entities that schools involve community organizations in school safety planning and the development of safety strategies. However, there are no known studies suggesting the effectiveness of this involvement. This study investigated community organizations involvement in school safety planning as a predictor of serious violent incidents using a regression analysis. In block one, law enforcement involvement in school safety planning was the only significant predictor of serious violent incidents (p < .05). Law enforcement organizations had showed a negative relationship with serious violent incidents (t= -2.994). When law enforcement organizations were involved in school safety planning, there were lower numbers of serious violent incidents. In block two, when adding school characteristics (size, location and racial distribution) to the model, law enforcement involvement continues to be a significant predictor of serious violent incidents (p < .05) and still having a negative relationship (t = -2.058). School size (t = 7.736, p < .01), school location (t= -3.386, p < .01) and racial distribution (t = 4.125, p < .01) were also significant predictors of serious violent incidents. In block three of the regression model, violence prevention and intervention variables were added. The results of this analysis shows that law enforcement is no longer a significant predictor of violence (t= -1.829, p > .05). In this model it can be seen that prevention variables related to student surveillance was a significant predictor of serious violence incidents with a negative relationship (t = -2.240, p < .05). Although the variables of law enforcement, school characteristics and prevention are significant, the percent of variance in each block is small. In block one only 0.7% of the variance is explained, in block two only 5.2% of the variance is explained and in block three only 5.3% of the variance is explained.