School safety departments, like many other departments, are often overtasked and under-resourced, making it difficult to staff and implement a threat assessment team. These types of teams assess, identify, and manage threatening or potentially threatening situations and behaviors.

The new Title IX rules on sexual harassment feature many principles of threat assessment, making threat assessment teams more critical than ever for K-12 schools.

Sexual Assault in K-12 Schools

The Education Department found that reports of sexual violence at K-12 schools increased by about 50% from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2017-2018 school year. Conversations around sexual assault have typically only revolved around college campuses, so K-12 administrators may find themselves feeling underprepared to handle allegations of sexual assault.

“There is so much more that needs to be done in the K-12 space to increase awareness around Title IX and sex discrimination and sexual harassment,” said Shiwali Patel, Director of Justice for Student Survivors and Senior Counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.

Why Threat Assessment Teams are a Must-Have for K-12 Schools

In a recent article in Campus Safety Magazine, Elliot Cox, a school safety analyst for the Idaho Office of School Safety and Security, outlined several key reasons why the new Title IX rules make threat assessment teams even more critical to K-12 schools.

1. The new Title IX rules mandate that when sexual harassment is alleged, schools must provide supportive measures to the alleged victim. These measures could include contact restrictions, security escorts, referrals to supportive services, and altering school schedules. Designing strategies to protect the safety of alleged victims perfectly aligns with a threat assessment and management process. Plus, since the threat assessment team should include members from different departments, this will expand the resources/supportive measures that can be provided.
   
2. The new Title IX rules require the basic principles of threat assessment, especially in regard to the emergency removal provision, so schools should seriously consider forming and training a threat assessment team. This will help the school focus on safety and compliance as a whole, and can help with Title IX allegations and decisions.
3. The emergency removal provision also comes with challenges. If the removed student challenges the removal decision, if a decision of reinstating needs to be made, and if there is a tense environment if reinstatement occurs, a threat assessment team that is trained to assess, manage, and mitigate these types of situations will certainly come in handy for the school and school community.
4. For K-12 schools, a Title IX sexual harassment complaint must be formally filed by the alleged victim’s parent/guardian. There may be circumstances where the Title IX coordinator will need to proceed with an investigation, even if the victim and their parent/guardian elect to not file a formal complaint. A threat assessment team can help determine what circumstances elicit a school to initiate their Title IX process.
5. Parents now play a bigger role in the new Title IX grievance process, as mentioned above. Managing parent behavior can be a tricky concept, and adding in the sensitive nature of sexual harassment and assault, does not make this process any easier. A well-trained threat assessment team can help manage hostile situations that may arise with parents.
6. Sexual harassment/assault/violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence (potential Title IX cases) are all actions that could lead to further acts of violence by the perpetrator. As such, these types of activities should be assessed and managed by a thoroughly trained threat assessment team.

Next Steps

• Assemble a multidisciplinary threat assessment team. Members from Administration, Security, Legal, Human Resources, Law Enforcement, Mental Health/Student Services, Special Education, and Title IX departments should all be represented on this team.
• Properly and thoroughly train the team on the principles of threat assessment.
• Empower the team. The team should meet regularly, not just when a threat assessment needs to be conducted.
  

How Vector Solutions Can Help

Free On-Demand Webinar: New Rules on Title IX for K-12 Schools

This on-demand webinar provides an overview of the most significant changes in these New Rules for K-12 schools and strategies on how best to incorporate these changes. View Webinar

Online Staff and Student Training

The SafeSchools Online Training System offers courses to help both your staff and students address Title IX-related issues, including:

Staff Courses

1. School Violence: Identifying & Addressing
2. Sexual Harassment: Staff-to-Staff
3. Sexual Harassment: Student Issues & Response
4. Sexual Misconduct: Staff-to-Student
5. Threat Assessment
6. Title IX Compliance Overview
   

For students, we offer Sexual Harassment (Grades 6-8) and Sexual Harassment (Grades 9-12).

Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about how our Staff or Student Training can help you understand the new Title IX regulations and address sexual harassment and assault in your district.

On-Demand Webinar with Megan C. Farrell

The New Rules under Title IX were released by the Department of Education on May 6, 2020, with a requirement implementation date of August 14, 2020. K-12 schools face significant changes to what matters they need to investigate under Title IX, how they must conduct those investigations, and who needs to be trained at the school districts before this fast-approaching implementation date. This on-demand webinar provides an overview of the most significant changes in these New Rules for K-12 schools and strategies on how best to incorporate these changes before the school year begins.

Title IX for K-12 Schools Webinar Topics

1. Review of implementation challenges school districts face as they work to implement the New Title IX Rules by the deadline.
2. Highlight of 15 significant changes to Title IX that have impact to your policies, procedures, and practices.
3. Learn what next steps are recommended for Title IX Coordinators and district administrators to implement the new rules.

Complete the form below to view the webinar recording. 

About the Presenter – Megan C. Farrell, JD MBA

Megan is an advisor and consultant to educational institutions with a focus on Title IX compliance. Megan’s background includes working as Title IX Coordinator at Palo Alto School District and Notre Dame of Maryland University. She has also served as in-house counsel, faculty member, and graduate program director. Megan also has provided risk and litigation management counseling to institutions, developed internal policies and procedures for education clients, and designed customized training programs for educational institutions across the country. Megan is also the author of our SafeSchools Staff Training course, Title IX Compliance Overview.

In February, the U.S. Department of Education announced a new Title IX enforcement initiative, led by the Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR). The objective of this new initiative is to fight the rise of sexual assault in K-12 public schools.

Title IX requires that schools and districts take appropriate steps to address sexual discrimination. The requirements of Title IX apply to incidents of sexual misconduct, including incidents that involve both student-on-student misconduct and staff-on-student misconduct. According to data from the OCR, the number of K-12 sexual harassment and violence complaints is nearly 15 times higher than it was 10 years ago, with 9,700 incidents of sexual assault, rape, or attempted rape reported in public elementary and secondary schools in the 2015-2016 school year.

The new Title IX enforcement initiative will include the following activities: 

• Compliance Reviews – OCR will conduct nationwide compliance reviews to examine how sexual assault cases are handled in schools and districts.
• Public Awareness and Support – OCR will focus on increasing the awareness of sexual assault in K-12 schools among educators, school leaders, parents, and families.
• Data Quality Reviews – OCR will partner with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and will work with districts to ensure that incidents of sexual assault/sexual offenses are being accurately recorded and reported.
• Proposed Civil Rights Data Collection – OCR has proposed to more universally collect more detailed data on sexual assault.

While there are still questions regarding how proposed Title IX regulation changes will impact K-12 schools, it is clear from the new enforcement initiative, that K-12 school districts and schools should review their existing policies and procedures regarding how to address, resolve, and report sexual assault incidents at their schools. In a recent article published in District Administration, Brett Sokolow, president of the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), suggested that, “Schools and districts need to form committees, task forces and Title IX teams now, so that administrators can study the regulations and commentary when they are published and change what needs to be changed.” 

How SafeSchools Can Help

The SafeSchools Online Training System includes a variety of courses to help schools increase the awareness and understanding of issues related to sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault for both staff and students, including: 

Staff Courses

• Dating Violence: Identification and Prevention
• Sexual Harassment: Staff-to-Staff
• Sexual Harassment: Student Issues & Response
• Sexual Misconduct: Staff-to-Student

Student Courses

• Sexual Harassment (Grades 6-8)
• Sexual Harassment (Grades 9-12)

SafeSchools Alert Tip Reporting System

With our SafeSchools Alert Tip Reporting System, students, staff, and parents can confidentially report safety concerns, including harassment, intimidation, bullying, mental health concerns, weapons, and threats of violence to your administration via mobile app, web, email, text, or phone.

For more information on how our Staff or Student Training or Tip Reporting System can help you address sexual harassment and assault in your district, contact us at 1-800-434-0154 or [email protected].