This brief investigates school shootings and their impact on individual, community, and societal levels. It includes professional and personal perspectives from individuals directly involved in and impacted by school shootings. These novel perspectives will help inform best practices necessary to strengthen school safety measures, as well as prevention and response efforts. This brief will serve as helpful guide to mental health professionals, school administrators, psychology students and educators, law enforcement, and threat management and crisis response teams, aiding in better understanding of the many factors surrounding school shootings.

Safety is widely assumed to be a high priority for both policy and practice in American schools, and yet school shootings continue to occur. It is every principal's salient nightmare. There are no universally accepted definitions of school shootings and little unified scholarship in the current research to guide change. The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon using first order data from a principal who has experienced a school shooting. Using a critical realist perspective this study used an in- depth single case to explore leadership and organizational factors which impact both the prevention and response in a shooting. A series of semi-structured interviews form the cornerstone of the data with supporting evidence from artifacts, documents, additional stakeholder interviews, and external sources. Results show a myriad of attributes converges to make school shootings to be highly complex events wherein many contributing factors are external to the institutions and the leaders who serve them. The data indicate strong systems of prevention and preparedness are clearly requisite to a safe school. Moreover, certain leadership skills are essential for building a culture of trust in which students feel safe enough to share potential threats. While there is no single solution, the study offers a range of proactive and responsive strategies to mitigate the risk, as well as recommendations for further study.

Different areas of inquiry have addressed the tragedy of school shootings and their deeply disruptive impacts upon school culture, classrooms, and student learning in this contemporary moment. Therefore, it is important to bring together interdisciplinary research on the long-term impacts of these events on students, teachers, and communities. In an age where arming classroom teachers is a serious policy initiative, there is a question of how a culture of fear manifests itself in those involved in school systems. There is a need to study these effects and implications in a time where violence and school shootings appear to have become more common than ever before. Hence, there is a need for diverse perspectives in this area of complex and urgent inquiry. Impact of School Shootings on Classroom Culture, Curriculum, and Learning explores the manifestations of the threat of school shootings and the aftermath of such tragic events through an interdisciplinary approach including but not limited to inquiries from educational psychology, sociology, educational philosophy, school leadership, and school culture with a view towards understanding the enduring and obscured effects of school shootings beyond the prevailing emphasis on facility safety and security. While chapters highlight topics such as resilience and recovery, school culture, sociology of schools, leadership and school regulation, and many more areas of interest, this book is ideal for educational leaders and administrators, classroom teachers, counselors, therapists, psychologists, school division trustees, law enforcement, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students looking for the impacts and aftermath of school shootings on all aspects of education.

In the news, there have been many school shooting incidents reported and several reports state that in 2020, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death of individuals ages 19 and younger. The Columbine High School Shootings on April 20, 1999, brought the spotlight on school shootings for many and led many individuals to believe that schools will be made safer because of that incident. Then, it was reported that on December 14, 2012, twenty children between the ages of six and seven, and six adult staff members were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. After the Sandy Hook shooting, executive actions were signed by the President of the United States and proposals were made to Congress but deaths and serious injuries have continued at schools. In my opinion, we should have awareness and a plan to make schools safer, unlike what we did before September 11, 2001. On September 10, 2001, it seems that airport security did not have the proper personnel, policy, or protective devices in place. In my opinion, regarding school safety, many schools do not have the proper personnel, proper policies, or protective devices in place either. On September 11, 2001, there were worldwide shock, outrage, and condolences after the deadliest terrorist attack ever occurred in the United States, which was apparently missed in the risk assessments report. The government may have had a plan for a terrorist attack but not the awareness of the possibility of this type of attack. Law enforcement agencies and politicians probably have ideas to make schools safer, but their suggestions seem incomplete. Based on my four different decades of practical school safety and security experience, experience working with government and private groups, my education, and training, school safety is not a single-issue problem and therefore requires more than a single-issue solution. This will be explored in this publication.

School shootings are a topic of research in a variety of different disciplines—from psychology, to sociology to criminology, pedagogy, and public health—each with their own set of theories. Many of these theories are logically interconnected, while some differ widely and seem incompatible with each other, leading to divergent results about potential means of prevention. In this innovative work, leading researchers on the topic of school shootings introduce their findings and theoretical concepts in one combined systematic volume. The contributions to this work highlight both the complementary findings from different fields, as well as cases where they diverge or contradict each other. The work is divided into four main sections: an overview of current theoretical approaches and empirical models; application of these theories to international cases, including Columbine (USA), Emsdetten (Germany), and Tuusula (Finland); a critique of the influence of the media, both in the portrayals of past events and its effect on future events; and finally an overview of existing models for prevention and intervention, and measures of their success. The result is a comprehensive source for current research on school shootings, and will provide a direction for future research.

School violence of all kinds continues to be a major concern today. Nearly a third of all parents report fear for their children’s safety in today’s schools. It provides a detailed overview nine types of school violence and also a detailed analysis of the research base on effective policies, approaches and programs. It is designed to aid school, criminal justice and mental health professionals, as well as interested parent and community groups, in preventing, responding to, and recovering from school violence. The book covers school shootings, physical violence, bullying and cyber-bullying, suicide, sexual harassment and violence, teen dating violence, gang violence, intruder violence and violence against teachers and staff. In addition to discussing each type of violence using detailed case studies, each chapter details known causes and correlates of each type, legal and policy implications, a description of evidence-based models and what stakeholders can do to address each type of violence. Selecting the right evidence-based approach (or approaches), and implementing it coherently, effectively, and with the right leadership and resources, can make all the difference.

In August 2023, a gunman perpetrated a shooting at the Covenant School in Charlottesville, Virginia, resulting in the deaths of 19 students and teachers. The shooting was the deadliest school shooting in American history at the time. The events of the shooting were chronicled in the e-book Introduction to 2023 Covenant School Shooting authored by journalist and author Nick Spencer. Spencer’s book is a comprehensive examination of the tragic events that occurred that day. The book chronicles the events of the shooting, including the shooter’s background, preparation, and motivation. The author also looks at the actions of the first responders who arrived on the scene, the emergency procedures utilized by the school, and the mental health repercussions experienced by survivors. Spencer also provides a timeline of the events, a list of the victims, and a discussion on gun control laws and school safety policies. Overall, Introduction to 2023 Covenant School Shooting is a thorough examination of one of the most tragic events in American history.

In recent years, the United States has seen a vast increase in bloodshed stemming from violence within the education system. Understanding the underlying factors behind these atrocities may be the first step in preventing more brutality in the future. The Handbook of Research on School Violence in American K-12 Education provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of the phenomena of school violence through the lens of social science and humanities perspectives. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as preventative measures, cyberbullying, minority issues, risk factors, and dealing with the traumatic aftermath of such events, this book is ideally designed for researchers, students, psychologists, sociologists, teachers, law enforcement, school counselors, policymakers, and administrators seeking current research on the interconnectedness between families, schools, bullying, and subsequent violence.