National Guard school Violence: Closeup of backs of people standing in two lines wearing camo green and brown army uniforms with an American flag in background

Is the National Guard a solution to school violence?

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In February 2024, officials in Massachusetts requested the National Guard be deployed to a more unexpected location – to a high school.

Brockton High School has been struggling with student fights, drug use and disrespect toward staff. One school staffer said she was trampled by a crowd rushing to see a fight. Many teachers call in sick to work each day, leaving the school understaffed.

Student psychiatric evaluations: Woman with long red hair in ponytail and navy sweatshirt hugs and kisses forehead of young boy with black hair

Schools are sending more kids to psychiatrists out of fears of campus violence, prompting concern from clinicians

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The 9-year-old had been drawing images of guns at school and pretending to point the weapons at other students. He’d become more withdrawn, and had stared angrily at a teacher. The principal suspended him for a week. Educators were unsure whether it was safe for him to return to school — and, if so, how best to support him.

Denver school shooting suspect dead; parents push security: people marching down sidewalk with "Stop gun violence" sign

Denver school shooting suspect dead; parents push security

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A 17-year-old student was found dead in the Colorado woods after being accused of shooting and wounding two administrators at his Denver high school where students and parents were already fed up over recent violence and a lack of action by officials, authorities.

Ticketing students: Three teen boys fighting in school corridor

Ticketing misbehaving students is counter-productive, critics of that practice argue

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Students can be ticketed by school resource officers or by local police departments to whom school staff members refer students viewed as disruptive. From misdemeanor offenses to such potential felony offenses as gun possession or assault, students can be cited under local ordinances. There is no centralized database of how many school districts employ that kind of discipline.

Phil Goldsmith on Violence in Philadelphia’s Schools

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ABOUT A MONTH after I became the interim chief executive officer of the School District of Philadelphia, in 2000, I was greeted with a damaging report by a subcommittee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives detailing rampant violence in the city's schools. Violence is a serious problem that the district "attempts to downplay, if not conceal," the report asserted. Now, a decade later, the Philadelphia Inquirer has placed a spotlight on the district once again in an updated and detailed encore, a multipart series on school violence. Reports of violence in the city's schools aren't new now, nor were they a decade ago. Three decades ago, a 1980 Philadelphia Evening Bulletin article proclaimed "student beatings are up 24 percent in Philadelphia."

Zero Tolerance, Zero Common Sense? Author Proposes Widespread School Security Reform

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Police officers, armed security guards, surveillance cameras and metal detectors are now commonplace at schools across the country. They go hand in hand with zero tolerance polices adopted by school systems in the wake of highly publicized outbreaks of violence. In a new book, Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear author Aaron Kupchik argues that these polices need to be reassessed to include some flexibility and more common sense. Research at four public high schools helped shaped Kupchik’s argument. He compiled more than 100 hours of interviews with students, administrators,  teachers and police officers assigned to each of the schools located in the nation’s Southwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.