The research project described in this report aimed at generating meaningful data that the collaborating school district could easily use to inform their daily operations related to school security and climate.
This report discusses a research study with two major goals: to identify the most effective types of school security climates; and to determine how the school security climate affects individual students. The researchers also sought to collaborate with key personnel across the school district in order to help them make decisions about school safety and school climate that best suited the individual schools, and to generate meaningful data that could inform daily operations in regards to school security and school climate. Results indicate that youth report less interaction with therapeutic security measures and more interaction with authoritarian security measures, there are racial discrepancies in the frequency of interactions with authoritarian measures; therapeutic approaches to security are associated with better outcomes, including positive academic outcomes such as GPA; school climate plays a role in promoting positive outcomes in youth who engage with school security; and that educators should consider how to facilitate positive and supportive environments within schools that implement proactive and preventative programs to build relationships with students. The appendix includes various tables with frequency and descriptive statistics for study variables across waves.