National Threat Association

Introduction:Politicians, the media, and parents consistently comment that “school’s used to be safe havens for our children,” but based on our history, is this reality or fantasy? Of course, one could argue that referring to schools as safe havens was neither reality nor fantasy but an idea of what we believed schools should be. Unfortunately, a belief based on a denial of facts does not protect schools, students, or educators. In fact, the denial of these facts have placed our schools at greater risk of victimization and targeted violence. Denial, whether intentional or unintentional, deprived us of 237 years between the first-known incident of targeted school violence in the United States, which occurred at an Elementary School, on Thursday, July 26, 1764, and the research undertaken by the USSS and USDOE in its 2001 SSI (“School Violence Around the World,” n.d.; U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, U.S. Department of education, & National Institute of Justice, 2000).

Instructions:

Analyze through research, whether the phenomenon of targeted school violence was minimalized over the years and whether this minimization resulted in the extreme targeted school violence and contagion of violence we are experiencing today?

Additional Instructions:

1. Assess the phenomenon of school violence.

• • Provide two explanations you found in your readings that explain the public’s misconception of schools being safe havens.
  • Explore offender-related communications relative to school violence pre-event, during the event, and post-event.
• • Describe why parents are likely to ignore or miss pre-warning communications.
  • Explain the use of threat assessment in pre- through post-secondary education.
• • Explain how your local and state boards of education address threat assessment in their secondary school plans.

  Special Instructions:

• Create a 1 page essay in APA format according to the instructions above. Use 2 sources for references. Be sure to utilize in-text citations.