THE STATE
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234 |
TO: |
EMSC-VESID Committee |
FROM: |
James A. Kadamus |
SUBJECT: |
Policy Issues Relating to Violent and Disruptive
Incident Reporting and Criteria for Identification of Persistently
Dangerous Schools |
DATE: |
January 3, 2006 |
STRATEGIC
GOAL: |
Goals 1 and 2 |
AUTHORIZATION(S): |
|
Issue for
Discussion
Does the Board of Regents concur with the direction staff propose to address policy issues concerning the reporting of violent and disruptive incidents and the identification of persistently dangerous schools?
Review of policy in implementing federal and State legislation.
Proposed
Handling
This question will come before the EMSC-VESID Committee on January 9, 2006.
Procedural
History
The Board of Regents discussed unsafe school choice provisions under the No Child Left Behind Act and criteria for the identification of persistently dangerous schools in June 2003 and adopted amendments to Commissioner’s Regulations to comply with federal and State legislation. In June 2005, the Regents received a report on violent and disruptive incident reporting and the criteria for identifying persistently dangerous schools in 2005. It included information on the establishment of a School Violence Index and a Supportive Learning Environment Index.
In November, the Regents discussed a proposed amendment to section 100.2 (gg) of the Commissioner’s Regulations that provided a ranking, standard for reporting, and more concise definition of reportable offenses as required by the uniform violent and disruptive incident reporting system for the reporting of incidents by school districts, BOCES, charter schools and county vocational education and extension boards, as required by Education Law section 2802. It also established the use of a school violence index as a comparative measure of the level of school violence in a school.
Background
Information
The Department
is committed to
improving the quality and reliability of the data on violent or disruptive
incidents reported by school districts and BOCES through the uniform violent
incident reporting system (UVIRS).
The first two years of UVIRS data collection resulted in data of
questionable reliability and usefulness in comparing the prevalence of violent
and disruptive incidents in schools and school districts across the State. A number of factors contributed to this
result including a lack of clarity of operational definitions and a common
standard for reporting incidents.
The Department has implemented
revised procedures to correct these two areas of concern and proposed amendments
to Commissioner’s Regulations to incorporate those changes. Definitions of
violent or disruptive incidents that involve the most subjective judgment have
been changed to reduce disparities in reporting across school districts by
requiring that only offenses that result in the referral of disciplinary charges
against the perpetrator or a referral to law enforcement be reported. Changes
have also been made to reduce the risk of over-reporting or under-reporting
weapons and drug incidents.
Department staff have
identified a number of policy issues and proposed actions to address them for
discussion by the EMSC-VESID Committee at its January meeting. The policy issues are:
·
The timely,
accurate and consistent reporting of data by school districts.
·
The
establishment of an incentive/sanction system that promotes the accurate
reporting of incidents and effective interventions in schools.
·
The
identification and weighting of incidents used in designating a school as
potentially persistently dangerous.
·
The
elimination of reporting bias due to large or small
enrollments.
·
The process to
determine which schools that have been preliminarily identified should be
designated as persistently dangerous.
·
The support to
be given to schools participating in violence reduction initiatives and those
identified as persistently dangerous.
The attached report also identifies the topics to be discussed by the Committee at its March and June meetings.
Recommendation
The Committee should inform staff if it concurs with the proposed actions to address the policy issues identified.
Timetable for
Implementation
The Committee will continue discussion of violent and disruptive incident reporting and the criteria for identification of persistently dangerous schools at its March and June meetings.
Project SAVE (Safe Schools Against Violence
in Education Act) was passed by the New York State Legislature and signed into
law by Governor George E. Pataki as Chapter 181 of the Laws of 2000 to address
issues of school safety and violence prevention. Among other things, the SAVE legislation
added a new section 2802 of the Education Law requiring the establishment of the
Uniform Violent Incident Reporting System (UVIRS).
The Board
of Regents, in response to the legislation, amended Section 100.2 (gg) of the
Regulations of the Commissioner of Education in 2001 to establish the uniform
violent incident reporting system. The regulation was developed in consultation
with the Division of Criminal Justice Services and with legislative and
executive staff. The regulation
used definitions of crimes taken from the Penal Law and required schools to
record information on violent and disruptive incidents beginning with the
2001-02 school year. Each school is
required to complete and maintain a record on each reportable violent or
disruptive incident. In addition,
each school must provide a summary of these incidents by using a Summary Form
for Reporting Violent and Disruptive Incidents that is submitted as part of the
Basic Educational Data System (BEDS). Each school district and BOCES is required
to include a summary of the data in its school district or BOCES report card.
The Department
is committed to
improving the quality and reliability of the data on violent or disruptive
incidents reported by school districts and BOCES through the UVIRS. The first
two years of UVIRS data collection resulted in data of questionable reliability
and usefulness in comparing the prevalence of violent and disruptive incidents
in schools and school districts across the State. A number of factors
contributed to this result including a lack of clarity of operational
definitions and a common standard for reporting incidents.
The Department has implemented
revised procedures to correct these two areas of concern and has proposed
amendments to Commissioner’s Regulations to incorporate those changes.
Definitions of violent or disruptive incidents that involve the most subjective
judgment have been changed to reduce disparities in reporting across school
districts by requiring that only offenses that result in the referral of
disciplinary charges against the perpetrator or a referral to law enforcement be
reported. Changes have also been made to reduce the risk of over-reporting or
under-reporting weapons and drug incidents.
SED and the
New York State Center for School Safety provided a series of staff development
and technical assistance activities to help staff and administrators understand
new reporting requirements through video-conferencing, video-streaming, regional
presentations, use of web-based technical assistance tools, and telephone
conversations.
To address some of the
problems with the reliability of the reported data, the Department has
communicated a very clear message to school superintendents to provide the
leadership necessary to develop systems to collect and report school and
district level data accurately and in compliance with federal and State
legislation and Commissioner’s Regulations.
Designation of a persistently dangerous
school requires two years of successive data. Because of the problems with the 2002-03
data that have previously been identified and the extensive changes made in the
manner in which data was reported commencing with the 2003-04 school year, the
Department identified schools as potentially persistently dangerous by using a
transitional standard that factored new data reported for the 2003-04 school
year and data for the 2004-05 school year. The transitional standard is a ratio
of violent incidents to enrollment in a school and is based upon the number of
incidents involving use or threatened use of weapons, serious sexual offenses,
robbery, assault with serious physical injury, arson and kidnapping. The Department used 2003-04 data to make
preliminary decisions as to which schools were designated as potentially
persistently dangerous. These schools submitted 2004-05 data to determine if
their two-year incident rates continued to meet or exceed a serious incident
tolerance level. Schools determined to be potentially persistently dangerous
after examination of the two years of data were provided one last opportunity to
submit additional data to the Commissioner before a final determination was made
that a school is designated as persistently dangerous.
The following is a list of policy issues that have been identified by
Department staff for discussion with the Regents. More details and proposed actions to
address them follow.
·
The timely,
accurate and consistent reporting of data by school districts.
·
The
establishment of an incentive/sanction system that promotes the accurate
reporting of incidents and effective interventions in schools.
·
The
identification and weighting of incidents used in designating a school as
potentially persistently dangerous.
·
The
elimination of reporting bias due to large or small
enrollments.
·
The process to
determine which schools that have been preliminarily identified should be
designated as persistently dangerous.
·
The support to
be given to schools participating in violence reduction initiatives and those
identified as persistently dangerous.
The timely, accurate and consistent
reporting of data by school districts.
Despite an extensive staff development
initiative targeted at providing district staff the necessary information
required to report violent and disruptive incidents accurately and thoroughly,
the data that we received suggests that some school districts are under and/or
inaccurately reporting incidents. Nearly 25 percent of schools did not report
any incidents of violent or disruptive behavior. Although Department staff and
various regional and State networks continue to provide staff development,
either directly or through the use of technology, local education agency staff
continue to inform us that they lack confidence that their neighboring districts
are reporting data accurately. In addition, the New York City Department of
Education (NYCDOE) claims that its current operational procedures for reporting
incidents prevents it from providing the Department with all the information
required to be submitted by it and every other school district in the State
under the uniform violent incident reporting system. Specifically, NYCDOE claims
that it is unable to provide information regarding both offenders and victims
for violent offenses or information regarding disruptive incidents.. Department
staff are meeting monthly with NYCDOE staff and the New York City Police
Department to better understand the concerns associated with its reporting
system and to devise strategies to align New York City reporting with the rest
of the State.
The
establishment of an incentive/sanction system that promotes the
accurate
reporting
of incidents and effective interventions in school.
The issue of both under and inaccurate
reporting of data is best addressed through the development of a system that
provides the appropriate blend of incentives and sanctions that helps win school
district compliance in responding to the requirement to report violent and
disruptive incidents. The current system provides little if any incentive for
districts to report data accurately. As a result, district staffs lack
confidence that all districts are reporting accurately and thoroughly.
An incentive for reporting might be the
provision of technical assistance and grants to assist school districts that
self-identify schools as ones that would benefit from participation in a
violence incident reduction program. In New York City, the Chancellor has
classified such schools as Impact Schools and implemented violence reduction
programs to address school violence issues. The Department can build from this
foundation and acknowledge that schools that have been identified by school
districts as Impact Schools or the equivalent and have implemented violence
incident reduction plans that meet criteria prescribed by the Commissioner will
be exempt from designation as a persistently dangerous school for a period of
time while the plans are being implemented. For such schools, their actual
designation as persistently dangerous would be delayed for at least two years
while their violent incident reduction plans were being implemented, provided
that the data for each of those years demonstrates a reduction in the number of
violent incidents. Similar to the
self-identified schools, schools that are identified as persistently dangerous
and, subsequently, implement violent incident reduction plans that meet the
aforementioned criteria would have their persistently dangerous designations
removed at the end of the school year in which they were so designated and would
be exempt from being designated as persistently dangerous for at least two years
while their violent incident reduction plans were being implemented, provided
that the data for each of those years shows a decrease in the number of violent
incidents. In addition, both of the types of schools would be eligible for
financial and technical assistance from the Department and statewide or regional
networks. The potential benefits of
this approach are that it will generate rich information regarding program
strategies that produce the best results and provide schools and school
districts an added incentive to identify and address the root causes of their
violent issues. Another incentive
for reporting accurately is the awareness that the reporting will be audited on
a regular basis. The Department expects to use the combined capacity of the SED
statewide and regional networks and SED staff to conduct audits of violent and
disruptive incident reporting.
An additional incentive is that the
Department is committed to making better use of violent incident data reported
to Department staff or in the news media to ensure that districts are reporting
accurately. The Department will encourage and formalize the reporting of violent
incidents by establishing a school violence hotline. This hotline will allow
persons to report anonymously either on-line or by telephone incidents of school
violence. These reports along with newspaper accounts of violent incidents will
be shared with district staff and will provide Department staff with additional
data to verify the accuracy of the reporting in a school.
The final “incentive” for reporting
accurately is very strong disciplinary measures that will be enforced if a
superintendent is discovered to be willfully under-reporting data.
The
identification and weighting of incidents used in designating a school
as
potentially persistently
dangerous.
The major incident categories that are used
for the designation of potentially persistently dangerous schools have been
identified after consultation with executive branch, legislative, law
enforcement and education staff. The categories represent very serious offenses
that threaten the safety and welfare of the student body. The issues that
require additional attention are the respective weightings of certain incidents,
especially weapons that are discovered and confiscated as a result of scanning
devices that have been purchased by school officials to keep students safe. The
issue of weapons confiscation has broader implications, as many schools do not
have these devices. The question to consider is how should weapons be treated
that are located in school lockers, backpacks, etc?
The Department is reviewing 2003-04 data to
determine the most appropriate response to this concern. The fundamental
question associated with this decision is how much of a threat is created by
students who attempt to enter the school building with weapons. The Department
is considering amending the current weightings to provide the highest point
totals to offenses where a person experiences bodily harm or serious
psychological trauma. Incidents such as homicide, assault resulting in serious
physical injury, serious sexual offenses, and kidnapping would be included in
this category. The second category
includes offenses that seriously threaten the safety and welfare of the student.
Arson, robbery and all incidents that involve the use of a weapon are proposed
to be included in this category. Finally, weapons possession incidents only are
placed in the third category and weighted accordingly. Seventy-seven percent of
the violent incidents reported for 2003-04 were in this category.
The 2003-04 data indicated that schools with
large school enrollments often appeared to have a very high tolerance for
serious incidents before they reach the transitional standard threshold
established to identify schools that are potentially persistently dangerous. The
threshold was established based on incidents per enrollment. This system,
although equitable, allows many incidents to occur at a school with a large
enrollment before it reaches the transitional standard threshold.
States such as Georgia, Idaho,
Massachusetts, Missouri, and Nebraska have provisions that are not enrollment
sensitive, and others, such as Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota, have established
lower tolerance factors for larger schools or have established a violent
incident threshold that, once met, qualifies a school as being designated
potentially persistently dangerous.
The Department proposes to establish an
upper limit violent incident threshold that upon being reached qualifies a
school as being designated as potentially persistently dangerous.
The process to determine which schools that have
been preliminarily identified
should be designated as persistently
dangerous.
The introduction of
the above-referenced steps could result in a larger number of schools being
identified as potentially persistently dangerous. It is important, therefore, to
continue to employ a two-step process of identification that includes subsequent
steps that acknowledge unique situations that may result in “false-positive”
findings. This is accomplished through a system that permits schools to provide
the Department with additional data that can be considered in making a
determination whether to designate a school as persistently dangerous. The
current system has two such mechanisms. The first is providing school districts
the opportunity to submit a second year of violent and disruptive incident data
using the most current data available, and the second is providing school
districts with the opportunity to submit additional appropriate data to explain
why the designation is not appropriate. Decisions need to be made as to whether
other mechanisms should be permitted before a school is formally designated as
persistently dangerous.
To assist in this process, it is important
to consider decisions that might impact the system’s credibility. Too many
schools being identified as potentially persistently dangerous will result in
the standard being challenged as being too strict and/or rigid. On the other
hand, a system that fails to identify schools that are perceived as dangerous by
the public based on news media accounts or first-hand information, will result
in questions regarding the legitimacy of the criteria or weightings. Finally,
care must be taken to ensure that the number of schools identified is
commensurate with the ability of the Department and school districts to take
meaningful action to address the issues in the schools.
The designation of a school as a persistently dangerous location should
trigger a series of responses by the Department to assist the school. Currently,
district staff develops an Incident Reduction Plan (IRP) for schools identified
as persistently dangerous. The IRP identifies the activities that the district
will adopt to correct the situation at the school. Often these districts lack
the resources to meaningfully confront the “root causes” of the problems. The
Department has for years assisted schools that have been identified as under
registration review because of low academic performance. The Department has a
similar responsibility to schools designated as persistently dangerous and is in
the process of committing staff and financial resources to these schools. The
Department has identified a pool of resources that are available to districts
with persistently dangerous schools. These resources are available through an
application process that identifies the activities that the districts will take
to correct the situations. The activities need to be tied into the Incident
Reduction Plan. In addition, the Department proposes to make available
significant support and assistance to districts that self-identify schools for
participation in a violent incident reduction program.