Student attacks following a school threat assessment: Statewide trends in student and case characteristics.

Students frequently make threats of violence in schools, but there is little research on how often these threats result in a violent attack. Based on a sample of 14,126 threat assessment cases from 1,692 Florida schools, this study investigated the frequency of attacks after a threat assessment, differences by threat classification and student characteristics, and the association of community violent crime with attack rates. There were 1,533 (10.9%) cases resulting in an attack and 38 (0.4%) involving a serious injury. A key distinction for threat assessment teams was the distinction between transient threats judged not to be serious and substantive threats judged to be serious and warrant protective action. Approximately one third of substantive threats and less than one tenth of transient threats involved an attack. Threats classified by school teams as serious substantive (OR = 11.8) and very serious substantive (OR = 13.0) were significantly more likely to result in an attack than nonthreat cases. Students who were Black (OR = 1.26), Hispanic (OR = 1.20), in high school (OR = 1.25), had an individualized education plan (OR = 1.34), or received free/reduced-price meals (OR = 1.80) were slightly more likely to make attacks following a threat assessment. Community violent crime arrest rates were not associated with the likelihood of an individual student attack but were weakly associated with district-level attack rates. Overall, these findings support the transient/substantive distinction and provide new insight into the prevalence of student attacks following a school threat assessment.