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Rod Paige Brian L. Stafford
Secretary Director
U.S. Department of Education U.S. Secret Service
Littleton, Colorado; Springfield,
Oregon; West Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas. These communities have become familiar to many
Americans as the locations where school shootings have occurred in recent
years. School shootings are a
rare, but significant, component of school violence in America. It is clear that other kinds of problems are far more common than
the targeted attacks that have taken place in schools across this country. However, each school-based attack has had a
tremendous and lasting effect on the school in which it occurred, the
surrounding community, and the nation as a whole. In the aftermath of these tragic events, educators, law enforcement
officials, mental health professionals, parents, and others have asked:
“Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?”
and, “What can be done to prevent future attacks from occurring?”
In June 1999, following the attack at Columbine High School, our two agencies--the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education--launched a collaborative effort to begin to answer these questions. The result was the Safe School Initiative, an extensive examination of 37 incidents of targeted school shootings and school attacks that have occurred in the United States beginning with the earliest identified incident in 1974 through June 2000. The focus of the Safe School Initiative was on examining the thinking, planning, and other behaviors engaged in by students who carried out school attacks. Particular attention was given to identifying pre-attack behaviors and communications that might be detectable--or “knowable”--and could help in preventing some future attacks.
The Safe School Initiative was implemented through the Secret Service’s
National Threat Assessment Center and the Department of Education’s
Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. The
Initiative drew from the Secret Service’s
experience in studying and preventing assassination and other types of
targeted violence and the Department of Education’s expertise in
helping schools facilitate learning through the creation of safe environments
for students, faculty, and staff.
This document, the Safe School Initiative’s final report,
details how our two agencies studied school-based attacks and what we
found. Some of the findings may
surprise you. It is clear that
there is no simple explanation as to why these attacks have occurred. Nor is there a simple solution to stop this
problem. But the findings of the
Safe School Initiative do suggest that
some future attacks may be preventable, if those responsible for safety
in schools know what questions to ask, and where to uncover information
that may help with efforts to intervene before a school attack can occur.
Since it began in June 1999, our partnership has been a tremendous asset to each of our respective agencies and vital to the success of this study. It is our hope that the information we present in this final report is useful to those of you on the front lines of this problem – the administrators, educators, law enforcement officials, and others with protective responsibilities in schools – and to anyone concerned with children’s safety. We encourage all of you in your efforts to keep our nation’s children safe in school and hope this report helps you in those efforts.
Rod Paige Brian
L. Stafford
Secretary
Director
U.S. Department
of Education U.S.
Secret Service
Return to the Final Report and Findings of the
Safe School Initiative Contents Page