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The unprecedented school closures in response to COVID-19 have been associated with a number of negative impacts on students and their families. In addition to these difficulties, parents of students with disabilities are faced with prepandemic stresses and challenges that may be exacerbated by the school closures. This qualitative study aimed to investigate the experiences and struggles of parents of children identified with a disability during the COVID-19 school closures. The 15 participants were parents of children with a range of disabilities, including Autism, Down Syndrome, ADHD, and learning disabilities. The analyses revealed four major themes: school connection, virtual learning, potential impacts for students, and managing change. The experiences of these caregivers during the COVID-19 school closures and subsequent shift to remote learning have implications for educational and treatment planning. Recommendations for how school psychologists and school teams may best support students with disabilities and their families are included.

Multiple professional associations and agencies have recommended that schools establish threat assessment processes and procedures. Such recommendations have been directed at school districts in Colorado, a state that has experienced multiple school shootings. In this exploratory study, the nature and prevalence of threat assessment conducted in four Colorado school districts, as well as the demographics of students, were examined. The sample consisted of 759 threat assessment cases reported by the four participating Colorado school districts for the 2014-2015 academic year. Students were in grades pre-K to Grade 12. The majority of the threat cases were male (81.70%) and 39.9% received special education services. Just over 42% of the sample was white, 16.9% Hispanic, 16.1% African American, 5.3% Asian, and 4.2% Native American. Raw threat assessment data was provided by safety coordinators in each of the school districts. Data included student demographics and threat characteristics, though the availability of these data varied by district. Analyses revealed that males, students in special education, and African American and Native American students were overrepresented in the threat assessment sample. Logistic regression indicated that students in special education were significantly more likely to have a threat rated as serious than those not in special education. Study findings have implications for school assessment practices and training in public schools.

Threat assessment involves evaluating and intervening with individuals who make threats of violence. This study examined the resulting actions and outcomes of threat assessment cases in three Colorado school districts. A particular focus of the study was on potential disparities. The sample consisted of 253 threat assessment cases reported by participating school districts for the 2014-2015 academic year. In addition to disciplining students, schools implemented a variety of nondisciplinary actions in response to threat assessment, including mental health services, behavior support plans, and referrals for a special education evaluation. Analyses found no disparities in any outcomes, including disciplinary actions among Black, Hispanic, and White students receiving a threat assessment. There were also no significant differences between students with and without disabilities. These findings are promising in light of documented exclusionary discipline disparities and have implications for both the use of threat assessment as a violence prevention strategy and school discipline reform.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis of proportions not seen in generations. In the spring of 2020, all 50 states were simultaneously under a disaster declaration (U.S. News, 2020) and most communities began to require distancing in order to mitigate virus spread. As a result, schools closed and distance learning and telehealth became the norm for most children. While many school districts had initially intended to resume face-to-face education before summer break, many schools plan to reopen in the fall. on and related services. This article provides guidance for school psychologists and school leaders to plan for the reopening of schools post-COVID-19 using the PREPaRE model (Brock et al., 2016). The PREPaRE framework describes the full range of school crisis-related activities from prevention to recovery. Specifically: P (prevent and prepare for psychological trauma), R (reaffirm physical health and perceptions of security and safety), E (evaluate psychological trauma risk), P and R (provide interventions and respond to psychological needs), and E (examine the effectiveness of crisis prevention and intervention).

When the coronavirus pandemic was declared a public health crisis in March 2020, school psychologists were forced into situations where face-to-face interaction with their students was discouraged and in some cases, prohibited. Consequently, the traditional practice of school psychology abruptly ended. Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) meetings were moved to virtual formats, and consultation, counseling, and assessment had to be performed remotely. In the case of behavior rating scales, social-emotional questionnaires, and other inventories, the shift to virtual administration was almost seamless, as publishers had already created remote assessment options for many of these measures. The transition to virtual administration of cognitive assessments was much more difficult because they rely heavily on in-person interaction (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020). School psychologists are required to follow rigid assessment timelines prescribed by federal law, as well as state statutes. For example, according to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA, 2004), an initial evaluation must be conducted within 60 days of obtaining parent permission for the assessment. Deciding how to proceed with cognitive assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic requires a deep exploration of ethical and legal guidelines to ensure the completion of valid and defensible evaluations of students. In this article, the authors propose the use of the ethical decision making model posited by Jacob and colleagues (2016) to support decision-making in this context. The seven steps in this model include: (1) describing the problem situation; (2) defining the potential ethical-legal issues involved; (3) consulting available ethical-legal guidelines; (4) consulting with supervisors and colleagues; (5) evaluating the rights, responsibilities, and welfare of all affected parties; (6) considering alternative solutions and consequences of making each decision; and (7) making the decision and taking responsibility for it (Jacob et al., 2016).

COVID-19 is a crisis unlike any the country has faced before. Unlike other events, the pandemic is affecting every community in some way. The constantly evolving situation is creating significant stress and uncertainty--not only for children and youth, but also for those charged with caring for those students at home and in educational and mental health contexts. As a result, schools must be prepared to support the adults who work in the school setting so that they can continue to foster the development, learning, and achievement of the children and youth for whom they are responsible. This article presents steps that school leaders can take to foster health and well-being in themselves and their school communities. Keep in mind that recovery from a crisis takes time and does not happen in a linear fashion, especially one such as the pandemic that does not have a discrete, known end.

State governments and other agencies are resources that have the potential to provide leadership and guidance about school-based threat assessment practices. However, accessing information regarding threat assessment-related state mandates and recommendations can be a challenging and a time consuming task for school personnel as there is no single database or resource where that information is housed. Via internet searches covering all 50 United States, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the authors of this study identified state statutes, requirements, standards, and other recommendations for school-based threat assessment. Currently, only one state unambiguously and explicitly mandates threat assessment procedures and threat assessment teams. However, at least five other states have other statutes, standards, or procedures that imply the need for school-based threat assessment. Additionally, at least 39 states provided a quality web-based threat assessment resource for schools. Twenty-three of those resources were posted on state departments of education or public instruction web pages. At least 21 states have developed specific state guidance documents on school-based threat assessment. These resources can guide school-based mental health professionals as they prepare for conducting threat assessments in the school setting.

Positive academic performance is a strong indicator of subsequent positive life course outcomes (e.g., employment) as well as underrepresentation in psychiatric populations, drug use, school dropout, and subsequent legal trouble (A. Farn & J. Adams, 2016). As such, helping all children to be successful in school is a top priority for parents, educators, and politicians alike. However, schools are challenged by an increasing demand to meet children's health and metal health needs in order for them to benefit from, and progress in, their educational experience. Public concerns regarding violent acts on school property have highlighted the need to address student and teacher safety. The authors provide recommendations for school psychologists regarding promising practices that respond to national initiatives to prevent school violence, increase access to health and mental health care, and enhance equity among students.

This study examined the association between various types of peer-directed violence and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. A nationally representative sample of 15,425 high school students completed the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. All types of peer victimization (bullying, physical violence, and dating violence) were found to be consistent predictors of suicide attempts, though no peer-directed violence was significantly related to suicidal ideation and interpersonal violence was negatively related to having a suicide plan. Few gender differences were observed. Findings have implications for practice including the importance of utilizing an integrated violence prevention approach and implementing a comprehensive suicide prevention program that includes effective suicide risk assessments.

In the aftermath of a trauma, the care and support of children is usually considered primary and there may be a push to return to normalcy. However, added support and encouragement to help adults cope will increase their capacity to address the educational and emotional needs of students. School staff members are best equipped to care for others when their own needs have been met.

Suicidal behavior in children and youth continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. School personnel have a legal and ethical obligation to recognize and respond to the mental health needs of their students and to take steps to ensure their safety. In this exploratory study, suicide risk assessment practices of three large school districts were examined. More than 3,400 suicide risk assessments were conducted in these districts during the 3 years considered. The results indicate that all three districts have implemented suicide prevention programs that include risk-assessment practices in an effort to reduce suicidality. Suicides risk assessments were conducted with at least one child in each grade from kindergarten through 12th in each district, occurring most frequently at the middle school level. Differences by gender were noted in terms of level of risk and hospitalizations, but no significant differences were observed based on race/ethnicity. These risk assessment efforts of these three districts appear to be promising in preventing suicides: none of the students who were assessed went on to commit suicide. Implications for school-based practices and training are discussed.

Grade retention in U.S. schools has a long history characterized by fluctuations in the frequency and application of this educational practice. These fluctuations reflect shifts in educators' and policy makers' beliefs about the effectiveness of grade retention and the conditions under which it should be applied. Although retaining students who fail to meet grade level standards has limited empirical support, promoting students to the next grade when they have not mastered the curriculum of their current grade, a practice termed social promotion, is not an educationally sound alternative. For these reasons, the debate over the dichotomy between grade retention and social promotion reveals a need to be replaced with efforts to identify and disseminate evidence-based practices that promote academic success for students whose academic skills are below grade level standards. The best alternative to grade retention and social promotion appears to begin with early identification of students who are not meeting grade expectations and the provision of individualized, accelerated instruction utilizing evidence-based instructional practices and frequent progress monitoring. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) supports the use of multitiered problem-solving models, often referred to as response to intervention (RTI), to provide evidence-based instruction and intervention to meet the needs of all students across academic, behavioral, and social--emotional domains. The core components of RTI, namely, evidence-based instruction and intervention, screening, and progress monitoring, will likely reduce the need for educators to chose between two undesirable options, grade retention and social promotion, to meet the needs of students who are struggling to meet grade-level academic and behavioral standards.

Shortly after the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and six school staff members on December 14, 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy established the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission to review laws, policies, and practices in place at the time to make recommendations to reduce the probability of another attack. The Commission included 16 subject matter experts in the fields of mental health and mental wellness, secure facility design and operations, law enforcement training and response, and public policy implementation. The Commission's work focused on three areas: (1) Safe School Design and Operations; (2) Law Enforcement, Public Safety; and (3) Emergency Response, and Mental Health and Mental Wellness. This article will focus on the first two areas. The area of Emergency Response, and Mental Health and Wellness will be addressed in a future article.

This article describes a crisis response framework based on the authors' first-hand experience following three Colorado school shootings. During each crisis response, one or more of the authors joined school and/or district crisis teams, providing direct assistance and leadership. The authors' experiences helped guide subsequent responses and assisted teams in better meeting the impacted school's needs. Lessons learned are shared with the intent of organizing and improving school-based crisis response to extreme acts of school violence.

The identification of children who are twice-exceptional--those who are gifted and have concomitant learning disabilities (LDs)--has historically posed a number of challenges for school psychologists and other school personnel. With the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and the shift to the use of a Response-to-Intervention (RtI) model to identify students with LDs, the task of identifying those who are twice exceptional is even more daunting. This article proposes an integrated model for the identification of gifted children with LDs that blends standardized assessment methods with practices consistent with RtI. This balanced approach brings together the best of both worlds to more accurately identify twice-exceptional students and better meet their educational needs.

During the past two decades there has been increased public, professional, and legislative interest in school crisis prevention and intervention. It is recommended that comprehensive crisis teams be established at the school, district, and community levels. A case study was conducted in which interviews were utilized to facilitate an increased understanding of the experiences of state crisis team members responding to a school-based crisis event and how crisis teams attempted a coordinated response. Data analysis revealed several themes related to the importance of knowing the school system, having prior crisis-related training, the need for role flexibility, expectations related to the response, personal impact of the response, and the need for self-care. School mental health professionals and crisis response teams can consider these themes and ways to address concerns related to these themes to improve crisis response efforts.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report entitled "A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013" (Blair and Schweit 2014). The goal of the study is to provide law enforcement with data so there is a better understanding how to prevent, prepare for, and recover from active shooter incidents. It also provides important insights into these incidents and has essential information for school personnel. This article reviews the findings of the study and discusses the implications for school psychologists. Findings include: (1) In a majority of high school and middle school incidents, the shooter was a student at the school, rather that an adult. For example, 12 of 14 shooters in high schools were students at the schools, and 5 of the 6 middle school shooters were students at the schools; (2) At the elementary level, incidents increased from 1 to 3 across the two time periods. In these incidents, the perpetrators were all adult males (ages 26, 48, and 20) armed with handguns or rifles; and (3) The resolution of the incidents was significantly different in schools as compared with the study as a whole. The majority of the 160 incidents (56.3%) ended on the shooter's initiative (i.e., shooter committed suicide, stopped shooting, or fled the scene). In contrast, only 36% of the school incidents ended as a result of the shooter's actions, and in all of these cases, the shooter died by suicide. In the remaining school incidents (64%), either citizens or law enforcement resolved the shooting. The citizens who confronted the shooters to end the threat were unarmed teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches, and other school employees, one of those who attempted to intervene and was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School was school psychologist Mary Sherlock.

The assessment of cognitive ability in students with the most severe disabilities presents a challenge to the clinicians who are charged with this task. This article is the second of a two-part series that summarizes what is currently known about effective assessment of the cognitive ability of students with significant impairments in order to improve service delivery to them. Part 1 presented background information and addressed assessment of cognitive ability in individuals with visual and hearing impairments. Part 2 summarizes the professional literature examining a variety of tests of cognitive ability that can be used with students with language impairments, motor impairments, and significant intellectual disabilities. [For Part 1, see EJ991790.]

Students with severe and low-incidence disabilities comprise a heterogeneous population that often presents a challenge to the professionals charged with evaluating their skills and abilities. This is especially true in conducting a valid assessment of the cognitive ability of these children. Often, school psychologists are limited to the use of published norm-referenced tests (Fagan & Wise, 2000) that provide limited meaningful information to be used for educational and treatment planning and programming (President's Commission on excellence in Special Education, 2002). While these assessments can produce a comprehensive picture of intellectual functioning for most typically developing children, it is much more difficult to obtain a valid picture of overall cognitive functioning and to delineate relative strengths and weaknesses for children with severe and low-incidence disabilities. Utilizing commonly used cognitive assessment tools with these students may not provide meaningful data that can be used for educational planning and programming. It is extremely important that the assessment tools are appropriate to the population because the information related to cognitive skills is vital in educational planning and a significant component of treatment evaluation (Delmolino, 2006). This article provides a review of the literature examining a variety of tests of cognitive ability that can be used with students with severe and low-incidence disabilities. Recommendations for assessment practices for a range of specific low-incidence disabilities are described.

This article explores the promises and pitfalls of a response to intervention (RTI) model for gifted students with learning disabilities (LD). Although much has been written about the potential benefits and challenges of RTI for identifying and serving students with LD, the ramifications of this model for gifted students with LD have not been fully explored. This article addresses this void by examining the potential of RTI to meet the unique learning needs of gifted students with LD. Inherent challenges this model may pose are discussed and suggestions for practitioners are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The implementation of a response-to-intervention (RTI) model requires a substantive shift away from the traditional roles that many school psychologists have held, as well as adoption of new and expanded functions within the profession. The responsibility of ensuring that professionals can fulfill these complex roles falls to preparation programs and the individual practitioners themselves. This article describes a self-review process of internal, organizational, and practice initiatives within a school psychology program designed to foster inclusive, responsive practices by newly licensed practitioners. Course content and requirements were critically analyzed in the context of how school psychological practice will be affected as RTI principles are translated into school-based applications. Recommendations for analysis of professional development needs and enhanced professional practices are provided for practitioners in the field as well as for school psychology training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]