Support staff distribution in K-12 US schools that experience shootings: A matched analysis

Objective

To compare the presence and rates of school police officers, security guards, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors between US K-12 schools that did and did not experience shooting incidents.

Methods

School shootings were defined as any discharge of a live firearm round on school grounds, as documented by the press and recorded by the Everytown for Gun Safety between 2017 and 2019. Using Civil Rights Data Collection (2017–2018), we compared staffing patterns between 200 schools that experienced shootings and 86,079 schools without incidents during 2017–2019. Propensity score matching using 32 school-, district-, and community-level covariates yielded analytical samples of 180 shooting-affected schools and 11,063 matched controls. We examined the prevalence and per-1000-student rates of school police officers, security guards, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors.

Results

The 180 schools that experienced shootings showed higher prevalence of school police officers compared to matched controls (50.6 % vs 41.8 %; difference: 8.8 percentage points [95 % CI, 1.6–15.9]). However, these schools had significantly lower rates per 1000 students of nurses (1.37 vs 1.88; difference: −0.50 [−0.95 to −0.06]), psychologists (0.81 vs 1.44; difference: −0.63 [−0.98 to −0.28]), and counselors (2.94 vs 3.71; difference: −0.77 [−1.25 to −0.29]). These patterns remained consistent across multiple sensitivity analyses.

Conclusions

Schools that experienced shootings demonstrated lower rates of health and mental health staff but higher law enforcement presence compared to matched control schools. These findings suggest the need for increased investment in mental health resources and reevaluation of current school safety approaches.