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Teachers and administrators across the United States struggle to maintain safe, civil, community- and achievement-oriented schools. Disciplinary actions (such as school suspensions) and security measures (such as school resource officers/security guards and security cameras) are some approaches commonly used in schools to try to improve school climate and safety. Another approach is to improve the socioemotional skills of students and educators to foster a more positive school climate and build positive relationships among all individuals in schools. The purpose of this project was to implement a social and emotional learning (SEL) program in a school district and evaluate its effects on school climate and safety throughout the district. Tools for Life®: Relationship-Building Solutions (TFL) is a program designed to improve school climate and safety through the proactive development of elementary and middle school students' interpersonal skills (relationship-building and communication) and intrapersonal skills (self-regulation and resiliency). In the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years, the Jackson (Mississippi) Public School District (JPSD) implemented TFL in grades 1 through 8. RAND researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether TFL, integrated into existing school practices, positively affected school climate and safety in the district. In this report, they describe the implementation of TFL in JPSD, calculate its costs, and evaluate the program's effectiveness. TFL is designed to improve whole-school change in relationships among staff and students, but the authors found that implementation of TFL in JPSD schools was generally shallow, and the program was rarely, if at all, implemented across a whole school as it was designed. TFL had little impact: After one year of implementation, there were no practically or statistically significant differences between schools that implemented TFL and those that did not in measures of students' social and emotional, school climate, behavioral, or achievement outcomes. In addition to the uneven implementation of the program, the authors discuss how methodological limitations of the study and contextual factors in JPSD may have contributed to these findings. [This study was undertaken with RAND Social and Economic Well-Being. For the appendixes to this report, see ED605322.]

In any K-12 classroom in America, chances are that at least one student is dealing directly with bullying, harassment, or another type of emotional or physical violence. What can teachers, principals, and school district leaders do to improve safety at their schools? There is some evidence that improving the social and emotional skills of both students and educators can improve school climate and, ultimately, school safety. There are many available programs and tool sets that schools can use to help improve interpersonal relationships, create a positive school climate, and build safe conditions. One such program is Tools for Life: Relationship-Building Solutions, a classroom- and home-based program for children ages 3 through 5 and in grades 1 through 8. The program is designed to improve school climate and safety through the proactive development of students' interpersonal skills, such as relationship-building and communication, and intrapersonal skills, such as self-regulation and resiliency. With funding from a grant from the National Institute of Justice, as part of its Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, in 2016, Jackson Public School District (JPSD) in Mississippi adopted Tools for Life as one effort to address serious school safety challenges that the district was grappling with. RAND Corporation researchers evaluated the short-term and longer-term effects of Tools for Life in randomly selected JPSD elementary and middle schools in the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years. The team conducted the first districtwide randomized controlled trial of the Tools for Life program, assessing the program's implementation, costs, and impact on school climate and safety. The findings of this study suggest ways in which schools and school districts can support adoption and implementation of tools and programs to enhance students' interpersonal skills and intrapersonal skills and, ultimately, school safety. [This brief describes research documented in "Social and Emotional Learning, School Climate, and School Safety: A Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluation of Tools for Life® in Elementary and Middle Schools. Research Report. RR-4285-NIJ" (ED605321).]

This technical appendix provides additional information about the sample, data, and estimation strategy used for a series of American Educator Panels (AEP) Data Notes published by the RAND Corporation in 2019. The Data Note series is intended to provide brief but incisive analyses of teacher and school leader survey results that may be of immediate interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. The information pertains to the second set of three Data Notes, which will be released starting in summer 2019.