Program Profile: School-Based Law Enforcement Framework (Texas)

This is a framework of recommended practices for integrating police into the educational environment to enhance a safe school climate. The program is rated Ineffective. There were no statistically significant differences in treatment and control school students’ delinquency, victimization, exclusionary discipline, relationships with adults, perceptions of police, nor school bonding, connectedness, and safety. Treatment school students had statistically significant increases in rule clarity.

An Ineffective rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes either 1) one study conducted in multiple sites; or 2) two or three studies, each conducted at a different site. Learn about how we make the multisite determination.

An Ineffective rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes either 1) one study conducted in multiple sites; or 2) two or three studies, each conducted at a different site. Learn about how we make the multisite determination.

Program Goals

The school-based law enforcement framework is a comprehensive, data-driven strategic planning process intended to assist staff at middle and high schools with implementing and monitoring their school policing programs. It is informed by research and policy recommendations for school policing and designed to be an iterative process that allows for adjustments to meet the unique needs and specific goals of each school (Scheuermann, Martinez–Prather, and Petrosino 2022). While each school has individual, tailored program goals, the overall goal of the framework is to create a safe school climate, reduce victimization and delinquency, decrease the use of exclusionary discipline, and increase students’ positive perceptions of police.

Program Components

This framework of recommended practices for integrating police into the educational environment provides guidance on five key components:

1. Designating a program committee and program liaison. In this component, schools create a committee of key stakeholders who meet regularly to plan and make decisions about their campus policing program. The committee should include representatives from various groups, including the campus principal or assistant principal, an assigned law enforcement officer, a teacher, a parent, a student, and/or a community member, to ensure a comprehensive perspective. Additionally, each school should appoint a program liaison to oversee the school policing program. A memorandum of understanding should be developed to ensure agreed-on terms within school–police partnerships.
2. Establishing tailored, specific program goals that are data driven and established by the committee at the beginning of each school year. This component emphasizes the importance of research and planning up front, provides best-practice processes and resources for facilitating program planning meetings, provides specific examples and templates throughout, and emphasizes the need for clear, continuous communication among all stakeholders. The committee formed in the first component of the framework is responsible for identifying specific activities that will help achieve the specific goals.
3. Training school police officers and school staff in areas that contribute to the success of the campus policing program goals and overall school climate. Within the framework, specialized training for school police officers is critical and should include an emphasis on areas such as the social and emotional needs of students, de-escalation techniques, and positive behavioral intervention and supports. Training for school staff on classroom management techniques that equips staff with knowledge to effectively handle student behavioral issues that should not involve law enforcement intervention is also critical within this framework. Further, training for staff should include awareness about the appropriate roles, duties, and expectations associated with the school policing program.
4. Monitoring progress toward goals, through the process of collecting and analyzing data for an unbiased, objective measure of how the policing program is performing and whether it is on track to meet its goals.
5. Adjusting the program as needed based on findings from data collection.

Study

Scheuermann, Martinez–Prather, and Petrosino (2022) conducted a clustered randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a comprehensive research-based framework for implementing school-based law enforcement programs on school climate, student discipline, and students’ perceptions of police over 2 full school years. The sample included 25 schools from six separate school districts in suburban and urban areas of Texas. The treatment group included 13 schools, and the waitlisted control group included 12 schools.

In addition to the components of the framework described in the Program Description, officers in the treatment campuses all received the Texas state-mandated, school-based law enforcement training course, and school staff received training on the history of law enforcement in schools, their roles and responsibilities, how to collaborate with school law enforcement, and awareness about the school policing framework and the established campus goals and activities. Beyond implementing the framework components, treatment schools were required to meet four additional deliverables: 1) a project planning meeting with key project staff and all key campus and district stakeholders to achieve a common understanding of the research project and framework processes; 2) a goal-setting meeting with key implementation team staff and campus framework committee members in September of each school year to ensure goals were data driven, relevant to school policing, realistic, and measurable and to ensure campuses had a thorough plan for achieving their goals; 3) monthly check-in meetings from October through May with key implementation staff to provide updates on progress toward goals, review collected data, and discuss whether adjustments were needed at that time; and 4) a final debrief meeting to discuss whether goals were achieved, direction for moving into the next school year, and feedback on the framework manual and processes. Schools in the control group did not use the school-based law enforcement framework and continued to run their school-based law enforcement programs as they saw fit; however, control schools did implement state-mandated training for School Resource Officers.

School climate was measured as student’s self-reported victimization (for example, “Have you been pushed, shoved, slapped?”), delinquency (e.g., “have you been in a physical fight”), caring adult–student relationships (e.g., “There is an adult who really cares about me”), and school connectedness and safety (e.g., “I feel safe in my school”), using items from WestEd’s California School Climate, Healthy, and Learning Survey. Rule clarity items were derived from the Delaware School Surveys scale (e.g., “Students know what the rules are”) and school bonding items came from the Psychological Sense of School Membership scale (e.g., “I wish I were at a different school”). The measurement of student perceptions of police used eight items (for example, “The officer makes me feel safe”) from an internally consistent scale. To examine student disciplinary actions, student incident data were collected directly from participating school districts and contained information related to the nature of the incident, disciplinary action, and student characteristics, including race, age, grade, and disability status.

At baseline, there were 5,671 student survey responses in the treatment group and 5,036 student survey responses in the control group. There were baseline differences between treatment and control group students on demographic variables (student grade level, the number of Hispanic and white students and students with above-average grades), and the outcome variable adult–student relationships. Linear regression models controlling for difference in baseline variables were employed to estimate the differences in self-reported student victimization and delinquency, school climate, and student perceptions of police in treatment and control schools after 2 years. To compute the effects of the intervention on student discipline, a simple measure of mean differences was computed for count variables and odds ratio for prevalence variables. The magnitude of effect was then computed using Hedges’ g for the count variable and the Cox index for prevalence variables. No subgroup analysis was conducted.

Texas School Safety Center at Texas State University project staff conducted in-person trainings for education staff at treatment schools. In year 2 of the study, educator training included a condensed version of the in-person training, supplemented with online modules. The Texas School Safety Center also assessed implementation fidelity through observations of samples of campus safety team meetings; observations of samples of campus check-in meetings; annual interviews with campus administrators and campus School Resource Officers; and observations of annual project debriefing meetings held with each school (Scheuermann, Martinez–Prather, and Petrosino 2022).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

White, Shawna R., and Joseph M. McKenna. 2020. “Improving School Policing Programmes Through Strategic Collaboration.” Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 14(2):512–25.

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

This practice utilizes a multi-tiered system of supports designed to make schools more effective in establishing a school culture and building a behavioral supports system to improve students’ behavioral, social, emotional, and academic outcomes. It involves three tiers of support, including both prevention and intervention efforts. The practice is rated Promising for reducing students’ problem behaviors.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Juvenile Problem & At-Risk Behaviors - Problem behavior

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?