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School COP: Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites

1. The principal s secretary enters incident data into School COP The principal assistant principal guidance counselor and SRO use School COP to view and analyze the incident data A school district security chief receives paper reports of incidents from all principals in the district reports are then entered into School COP An SRO Supervisor receives School COP databases from several SROs uses the School COP Merge Utility see Exhibit 2 Summary of School COP Utilities to combine the databases into a single district wide School COP database and uses School COP to analyze the district wide database Assistant principals at all schools in the district enter incident data into a common district wide School COP database Principals and other school administrators can view and analyze the data Several SROs enter data into a common School COP database which is also accessible to their supervisors Notes 1 School COP can be implemented on a local or wide area network to facilitate multi user operation Instructions for networking School COP are available on the School COP Web site If you want more than one person to use School COP there are additional options regarding the extent to which restrictions are imposed on what each user is allowed to do once they are logged in e All users have complete access School COP can be installed on several PCs and have the database copied to a shared netwo
2. Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 7 they hear about School COP from other users and SRO conferences and trainings e g the instructor or an attendee recommends School COP Exhibit 2 3 School COP Downloads from School COP Web Site By Month 350 300 250 150 100 200 50 0 Jul 02 eee Jul 01 BD Mar 02 Se May 02 Nov 02 e aaa Jan 03 E Mar 03 SaaS SSS May 03 eee Jul 03 EE Sep 03 aaa Sep 01 Nov 01 m m Jan 02 E Sep 02 Nov 03 E e COPS In Schools training conference series School COP is included in a monthly school safety training conference called COPS In Schools sponsored by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Office Since 1999 COPS In Schools funds have been used to hire approximately 6 100 SROs in 2 600 jurisdictions These jurisdictions are required to send all the SROs hired under the program as well as one school administrator to one of the training conferences School COP is featured in the Problem Solving session at the conferences During this session attendees are shown how the software can facilitate school based problem solving and are provided a copy of the School COP CD From January 2001 through December 2003 37 conferences were held each with approximately 175 attendees roughly 2 3 are SROs and 1 3 are school administrators In total between January 2001 and December 2003
3. Exhibit A 26 Coordinator Permissions for the Main Panel on the Home Page E Permission Manager Web Page Dialog f 7 xi Security Properties for WebPart WP_Html iewer1823 Anonymous Coordinator Non School Officials School Officials Administrators Ei Permissions Allow Deny Read Create Update Delete Execute MoO 0D K Oo M O K CT M ial Full Control In general the Permission Manager is used to control access to any object within Web School COP including panels on the Home Page menu bars and individual reports and graphs As shown in Exhibit A 26 five roles were created for the demo version of Web School COP which sites implementing the system can retain or create their own 1 e via the Add button in Exhibit A 26 Every authorized user is assigned one of these roles Specific rights i e access to Web pages to reports etc were also created for each role again these are modifiable by a site s system administrator e The Administrator has complete access to every object on every Web page e g they can edit the content of the Home Page create a new report edit an existing report e The Coordinator role is envisioned for the key school safety person in the district s he would be responsible for importing School COP data collected with the Windows version of the package and would have access to all reports in the system e The School Officials role is envis
4. Name Last First Rose Bob z Person Type Student z Date of Birth f 1 2 86 Gender M 7 School Leaming High School x mm dd yy Race write 7 Student ID J Special Gangmember x Grade f11th Grade E Characteristics Contact Information Involvement In Incident Perpetrator jad Action Taken Type Suspension 7 Start Date 4720701 End Date e2570 mmddyy mmddyy Comments a i Reports for This Person Me K z a Recodt oft This Incident adsnew Save Unde Edit Delete find Exit All Incidents Together Exhibits A 7 and A 8 show the data elements included in the School COP database Of particular note in the screens are the fields with drop down lists i e fields with the pull down arrows on the far right These fields correspond to those that have associated code tables Data Analysis School COP has three main options for analyzing data running canned reports and graphs search and analyze and creating multi layer maps Canned Reports and Graphs The easiest method for analyzing data geared primarily toward data novices involves running one of the pre formatted canned reports and graphs Clicking Graphs and Tabular Reports on the Main Menu see Exhibit A 1 displays a list of available graphs and tabular reports see Exhibit A 9 The list includes aggregate graphs e g the number of incidents by location incident lists e g all incidents occurring in a specifi
5. What follow up questions can be asked to understand the scope of the problem Incident based systems can answer questions about both incidents and students involved in the incidents whereas student based referral systems because there is no direct link between students involved in the same incident can only answer questions about students In other words incident based systems allow school administrators to identify problem areas e g a specific hallway specific times of the day as well as problem students The following scenarios illustrate these differences Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 71 Scenario 1 A teacher breaks up a fight involving two students and sends them immediately to the principal s office Incident Based System Student Based System What gets recorded Information about the incident e g where and when it happened Information about the two students involved in the incident Both are linked to the incident information Information about the first student and separately information about the second student The two records are not linked General types of related questions that can be answered at the end of the year The number of fights Characteristics about students involved in fights Characteristics about where and when fights occurred Characteristics about students involved in fights Scenario 2 A teacher
6. drop down lists would be identical The supervisors also entered the names of all the schools and defined areas within each of the schools e g school grounds and school building They also installed on each SRO s Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 62 computer school specific maps obtained from the school district of the different areas The supervisors did not however enter in School COP a complete list of locations for each area in each school Instead based on information from each SRO the supervisor defined a few locations for each school that were the suspected hot spots thus enabling the SRO and the supervisor to monitor these particular locations All this occurred in the first week of using School COP Training According to one supervisor I had to train them the SROs one on one because some are computer phobic However he added The SROs did not have a lot of questions for me even later The supervisor had each SRO enter several incidents during the session Each individualized training took 20 40 minutes per SRO During the training the supervisors had to make clear to the SROs that they needed to be scrupulous about making sure that each one entered information in the exact same manner into the database otherwise the supervisors feared the merged database containing data from all the SROs would not contain consistent data Fo
7. the thing that staff first noticed and appreciated was that School COP didn t use the cryptic codes that they hated about the old system For example instead of displaying AFSD for the action taken by the disciplinarian School COP displayed after school detention After the initial training the SRO occasionally pointed out features short cuts and tricks to users e g how to quickly produce a report showing all referrals for a student The administrators felt that these tips were extremely helpful and contributed greatly to their acceptance and use of the system The data entry process was set up as follows A teacher fills out an Office Referral Form and escorts the student to the office of an assistant principal who in turn decides what action to take the assistant principal also refers serious incidents to the principal A copy of the Office Referral Form containing handwritten notations on what action s he has decided to take goes to the Receptionist who enters information about the incident and the student in School COP This procedure will change in the near future since it is clear to school staff that it is more efficient to have the assistant principal enter data into School COP instead of Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 17 filling out a paper form and then having the secretary enter information on the form into School COP If the SRO elects to file crim
8. At one meeting the assistant principal shared the following types of School COP reports Incidents by e type pie chart e location pie chart e day of week bar graph e month bar graph e time of day bar graph Students involved in misconduct by e race list e gender list Maps of incident location for e all incidents e threats e theft e physical altercations Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 31 The principal focuses the discussion on asking the students to point out significant patterns and trends in the data and to help him to explain any unexpected findings Then he asks them to propose solutions e A solution students have recommended in response to School COP s evidence of misconduct in the hallways see Figure 1 and playground is providing more adult supervision in these areas In effect these students are ratting on the teachers because the assistant principal had already been urging teachers to stand in the hallways during class breaks Evidently the teachers are not complying I m getting the sense from the kids he said later that there isn t enough supervision Figure 1 Map of Physical Altercation Incidents Inside School Building largest square icon 7 incidents at a location res e Each of the school s three grade levels is clustered on its own hallway To solve a problem with misconduct along the 6 grade hal
9. Washington Adams and Jefferson with the highest overall incidence of reported crime according to figures provided by the State Department of Education In the proposal the school district partnered with the local police department who because of their community policing orientation had experience in formal problem solving efforts A local consultant with expertise in bullying also participated The school district s proposal said that the SARA problem solving process would be used during the project see the sidebar SARA Problem Solving Process Specifically project staff wanted to include a variety of data sources in the scanning and analysis phases of the project including e Victimization data based on a comprehensive survey of students e Project staff observations of the campus to identify areas with low supervision or that are particularly crowded or isolated during different times of the day e Surveys of administrators and staff to determine the nature and extent of the problem and e Incident data that provide information on specific incidences of bullying and related events SARA Problem Solving Process e Scanning identifying and selecting a problem e g bullying e Analysis examining what is causing or permitting the problem e g the bullies insecurity lack of reporting by victims parental tolerance or helplessness and identifying resources for help with solving the problem e Response
10. Chasing Choking Cursing Cyber Bullying Defiant to Adult Discrimination w Words Disobeying Yard Duty Drug Possession Sale Exposing Self Fighting Hitting w Ball Rope Inappropriate Gesture Invading Privacy in Bathroom Name Calling Possession of Weapon Pulling Hair Pulling Down Other s Pants Pushing Hitting Kicking Restraining Rock Throwing Rumor Spreading Social Isolation Exclusion Spitting Stealing Property Theft Stealing Prop W Force Taking Another s Toy Teasing Taunting Making Faces Throwing Food Threat Intimidation Tobacco Touching Privates Vandalism Destroying Property Verbally Aggressive to Adult Other Actions Taken Action Taken with Suspect No Further Action Taken Verbal Warning Privileges Lost Time Out Recess Lost Recess Modified Contract Agreement Discipline Partner Parents Contacted by Student Parents Contacted by Staff Referred to Principal Designee Replaced Property Reflection Sheet Community Service Counseling Parent Teacher Conference Parent Principal Teacher Conference Parent Principal Teacher SRO Conf Referred to FRC SRO Called In house Suspension Suspension Expulsion Referred to Police Other Action Taken with Victim Immediate Follow up Continuing Follow up Parents Contacted by Staff Parent Teacher Conference Parent Principal Teacher Conference Parent Principal Teacher SRO Conf Counseling
11. Diamond Basketball Hoops New Playground Equipment Blacktop in NE Corner Old Playground Equipment East Side of Building Name Sidewalk Grass Football Field Staff Parking Lot Grass Near Front Sign SW Corner Blacktop Area The customization involving the areas maps and locations took eight hours The SRO described the effort as a pain but he wanted to have everything all set for the other SROs School COP Geography School COP has a three tiered system for specifying where an incident occurred schools areas and locations e Areas In School COP schools can be divided into one or more areas If you want to use School COP s mapping features each area must have an associated map Ata minimum we suggest you have one area for each floor in each school building and one area for the school grounds After you enter the schools names in School COP you use the Area Screen to enter the names of the areas and specify the name of the file that contains the area map e Locations Each area can be divided into one or more locations Examples of locations include classrooms bathrooms and offices After you enter the schools and areas you will use the Location Screen to enter the names of the locations and to indicate where on the area map the location is You need to decide how specific you want to be in defining the School COP locations At a minimum there should be one location for each room in the school buildi
12. Fictitious names are used because of the Institutional Review Board IRB rules for the project which required us to preserve the confidentiality of the sites and persons interviewed Methodology Our goal for the project was to select six sites that varied along several dimensions Most importantly we wanted a mix in terms of the types of persons who originally advocated use of School COP and who actually used the software This would enable us to document use by all of the different persons with school safety responsibility including administrators SROs and school district security staff thus broadening the utility of the project findings We also wanted a mix of sites with respect to geographic setting of the school district e g urban rural the size of the school districts i e number of students and number of schools and the number of schools at the site for which School COP data are collected A less quantifiable but nonetheless important criterion is that we wanted sites that planned to use School COP in interesting ways meaning for more than just satisfying a bureaucratic reporting requirement An SRO using the software only to submit required monthly reports to her supervisor who in turn simply puts the reports in a file cabinet and doesn t distribute them to anyone would not make a very interesting site to study Site selection occurred one site at a time during the 2002 2003 school year Because we di
13. From fi 100 To 4 71770 Sort By Person s Name x Show Report Return to Main Menu Date ranges and sort orders can be selected for most reports Search and Analyze Whereas the canned reports are geared toward novice database users the search and analyze method offers advanced users an unlimited number of ways to analyze a School COP database The Search Incident screen see Exhibit A 10 enables users to search for incidents meeting a single condition e g all incidents involving a weapon or multiple conditions e g all incidents involving a weapon at a particular school occurring during a particular time period that involved a victim As many conditions as desired can be specified on the Search Incident screen including values in the free form incident narrative and person comments Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 83 fields For example Exhibit A 10 shows a search for all incidents occurring inside the building of Learning High School that involved vandalism Exhibit A 10 Search Incident Screen Specify search criterion see note below in as many fields as desired and then click Search to search the database m Incident Fields People Involved Fields Incident Person Name f y Incident Date O O Date of Birth Po School Year yy py Po Gender o C Incident Time O O Race rc OS School LeamingHigh School Special Characteristics ti itt Area
14. HOME POST INCIDENTS ADMIN FUNG J i a Dictionaries Query i Search by fo af Value Search Refresh New item ID Query Name 67 Days Ascending 66 Months Ascending System Identifier Days Ascending Months Ascending Description Days from 1 31 useful for start date in queries Months from 1 12 useful for start dates in queries Modified 2003 02 07 10 58 42 2003 02 07 10 57 29 Created 2003 02 07 10 58 42 2003 02 07 10 57 29 o elete Ea x 65 Incident Report IncidentReport 2002 11 27 12 50 44 2002 11 27 11 35 14 x 64 Incidents for a Specified incidentsForaSchool 2002 11 27 11 13 27 2002 11 27 10 48 31 63 Year ascending YearsAscending List ot years ascending useful for Start year droP 2002 11 27 10 39 39 2002 11 27 10 39 39 62 List of Groups ListOfGroups 2002 11 26 13 55 20 2002 11 26 13 55 20 x 61 Person History Summary PersonHistorySummary 2002 11 27 10 24 22 2002 11 26 13 50 09 x 60 List of Incident Numbers ListOfIncidentNumbers 2002 11 26 13 37 26 2002 11 26 13 37 26 59 List of schools ListOfSchools 2002 11 27 11 01 50 2002 11 2613 36 29 x 58 List of persons for a site ListOfPersons 2002 11 26 13 32 03 2002 11 25 14 22 56 x Items 1 100f58 i a H Report Management System i Search by ID z Value Search Refresh we ew A amp ID Report Name eae Description Last modified Created On i 131 Incident Report 131 Details for a Selected Incident 2003 02 11 05 15 16 2002 11
15. Program Origin While the assistant principal was attending a school safety conference in January 2002 a U S Department of Justice employee who was sitting next to him suggested he attend a break out session devoted to describing School COP Since the administrator had always been interested in managing discipline data he went After attending he was sold on the benefits of using the software program After returning home the assistant principal downloaded the software to his personal laptop computer from the School COP Web site address provided at the workshop It took him only a few minutes to load the software and get it up and running I m not particularly computer savvy he says but I got it running quickly because it was easy to use He used the help files that come with the software along with one of the district s information technology IT specialists to scan in and use a map of the school The assistant superintendent encourages teachers and administrators to test new software on their own and then take it to the IT specialists to evaluate Before he began to enter disciplinary data the assistant principal customized School COP in particular he reduced the number of incident types including eliminating murder and arson He reported that I liked the flexibility of being able to change fields incident types and disciplinary actions taken that s very very helpful Over the course of two Satu
16. because previously they had kept hand written logs of what they did and at the end of each month had to tally these activities before they could submit the information to the lieutenant School COP is also providing better information for SROs posted to the middle and high schools regarding incoming 6 and 9 grade students the officers can expect to be dealing with the following year Prior to implementing School COP the SRO advocate kept handwritten incident and other reports in a file in his office where he would hand them on request to the other SROs Now each SRO can at any time from the convenience of his or her school look up a student in the School COP database Finally School COP enables the lieutenant to prepare reports that can convincingly substantiate a request for a change in school safety policy For example by mapping where criminal incidents had occurred on school grounds over an eight month period see below he was able to support a recommendation to a principal to change a school supervision policy on the playground Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 57 Figure 2 Incidents Occurring on School Grounds Quick Map Incidents mapped Area Abt Associates Inc PAT AE atu je ive Near on sos eS TT School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 58 Chapter 8 Midwest Police Department Summary The City of Midwest with a population of ab
17. designing and implementing a solution to the problem based on analysis e g providing school wide education regarding bullying counseling students who bully working with the parents of bullies e Assessment evaluating whether the response reduced the severity of the problem Decision to Use School COP Existing incident data at the three schools was incomplete Two of the three schools did not have formal incident data collection procedures in place and instead kept informal handwritten notes on incidents in student folders in the principal s office The third school had an incident form that captured a minimum amount of information on the incident the student s name the date of occurrence a description of what happened and what action was Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 21 taken None of this information was automated Five to ten of these forms were completed on average per day usually by administrators when a student was referred to their office for disciplinary action but also sometimes by a teacher who wanted to document a certain behavior Given this current incident reporting situation project staff needed to implement some type of data collection process An analyst at the local police department had heard of School COP through contacts with the U S Department of Justice s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and believed that School COP could be used in the pr
18. is clicked the X and Y coordinates are automatically read and associated with this location When scanned images are used the coordinate pair 0 0 is located in the lower left corner of the map It should be noted that School COP only allows point locations regions cannot be defined Accordingly School COP cannot produced thematic maps As discussed earlier in this section all School COP incident maps are graduated symbol maps Regions could have been incorporated in School COP if an alternative approach to building a geobase with scanned images had been used That approach involves overlaying a fine structured grid on 8 In general different methods are used to construct graduated symbol maps In School COP the square root method is used that is the symbol size at a particular location on the map is proportional to the square root of the number of points at that location divided by the maximum number of points at any location on the map Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 78 a map wherein the map is divided into say a 1000 by 1000 matrix of cells There are advantages and disadvantages of both the grid and School COP approaches The grid approach involves less setup work for the user but more work when entering incidents i e locations must be specified on a map when entering new incidents as opposed to when the geobase is defined It is also easier to be more precise in spe
19. over 10 000 of copies of School COP have either been downloaded from the School COP Web site or distributed through the COPS In Schools conference series This figure does not include several hundred School COP CDs that have been distributed at other conferences over the past three years e g those sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics NIJ s Office of Science and An additional 10 conferences are scheduled for 2004 the number of conferences beyond 2004 depend on whether the COPS Office awards additional grants for SRO hiring Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites Technology NIJ s Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety Program and the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers or copies of the software passed from user to user e g an SRO returns from a COPS In Schools conference installs School COP on his PC and then gives the CD to other SROs What fraction of people acquiring School COP actually use it Information is available on the number of COPS In Schools conference attendees who after attending a presentation on School COP say they will use it in their school At that end of each conference the conference logistics vendor tallies responses on conference evaluation forms which attendees have to complete in order to be reimbursed for their expenses One question asks whether or not the attendee or someone else at their school will u
20. to resolve the matter During the day shift the Security Department handles about half of the calls it receives by itself while during the night shift it handles about 90 percent of the calls by itself The Security Department communicates with school administrators and students on about 80 percent of all service calls The Security Department s dispatch center located in the school district s main headquarters building has two rooms one houses two dispatcher workstations and their associated radio equipment printers and paper files the other room is the shift manager s office The dispatch center usually has two dispatchers on duty on the day shift and one dispatcher evenings and nights Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 41 The dispatch center receives an average of 15 20 calls each day shift when school in session and an average of 30 35 total calls each day The center logs in every incoming call In general calls fall into three categories those that can be handled by local school staff those that require assistance from district security staff and those that require intervention by West City police department officers e Example 1 call handled by local school staff an elementary level student who was not picked up from school at the end of the day e Example 2 call handled by school district security officer one of the alarmed spaces at a school was entered or the alarm went off
21. 27 12 48 13 27 Person Involvement Summary 4127 List of Incidents Involving a Particular Person 2002 11 27 09 45 01 2002 11 26 16 49 22 115 CodeTableContents_SchoolsAreasAndLocations 115 Code Table Contents Schools Areas and Locations 2002 10 25 11 29 05 2002 10 25 11 29 05 114 CodeTableContents_IncidentTypeAndSeverity 114 Code Table Contents Incident Type and Severity 2002 10 25 11 29 05 2002 10 25 11 29 05 113 CodeTableContents_AllCodeTables 113 Code Table Contents All Code Tables 2002 10 25 11 29 05 2002 10 25 11 29 05 i H hg E D T E inteme Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 106 Queries and reports can be built in two different ways For system administrators and if desired users in the Coordinator role that have rudimentary yet still well beyond the skills of users that only browse the Internet or do word processing database skills queries can be built click the New Item button shown in Exhibit A 30 In addition Web School COP includes a Report Wizard shown below in a series of screen shots Exhibit A 31 To start the Wizard click the W icon below and to the right of the Reports Management System header As shown below the Web School COP Report Wizard is similar to the chart wizard in Excel Exhibit A 31 a Initial screen of the Report Wizard 23 Report Wizard Web Page Dialog Enter Chart Type dl Exhibit A 31 b When the user clicks
22. Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 48 The Eastern City police department with 70 sworn officers and 20 civilian personnel has a K 9 unit police mountain bike unit S W A T and tactical units public housing officer and eight School Resource Officers SROs The department has provided security services to the school district since 1980 when it began a police school liaison program This program started with an officer in the three middle schools and one officer in the high school A formal SRO program began in 2001 in the elementary schools when the department received a COPS in Schools grant from the U S Department of Justice s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services that funded four SRO positions At the same time the department converted the four existing school liaison officers into SROs As a result a total of eight SROs were assigned to the schools representing about 10 percent of the department s sworn personnel A lieutenant supervises the SROs Two of the officers were assigned to the high school one to each of the three middle schools and three shared the nine elementary schools SROs have always been required to submit a police department incident report to the lieutenant whenever a criminal offense is committed in a school the lieutenant reviews the report and submits it to the department s records division for entry into its Record Management System RMS The lieutenant also
23. B amp i a Back Forward Refresh Home Search Favorites History Mail Print Edit Discuss Address fe http 10 121 210 74 svp main aspx dbID dash_Home gt Peo School A Vantagepoint INCIDENTS PINCTOENTS 4 lus Browse ADMIN FUNCTIONS elcome to SchoolVantagepoint HOME POST ERGAGIG 1 NIJ MAPS Proc School COP W COPS Office Abt Associates Inc d Reports Search p new Web site offers exciting new features to users of School COP a widely used free Oftware package for entering and analyzing school incident and crime information gt b Technical Assistance E Need help For project support contact Tom Rich School VantagePoint Project Director Abt Associates Inc 55 Wheeler St Cambridge MA 02138 Email tom_rich abtassoc com System Requirements This site is best viewed in Internet Explore 5 0 and higher 4 free version is available here authorized person with a Web browser School COP to collect district wide information can now make that information accessible to school administrators and other persons with school safety responsibility With SchoolVantagepoint School COP users can make their School COP data available to any For example a school district security office that uses i The SchoolV antagepoint coordinator at the school district can create user accounts to control access to SchoolVantagepoint specify which reports and information indiv
24. LHS Building Person Type o S Location School o Incident Type Trespassing gt Student ID ss Severity O Grade o Weapon Type Contact Information ss Special Circumstances 0 Involvement o Reported By SSS Action Taken Type o C SS Investigator SS Action Taken Start Date sss Status 0 H Action Taken End Date _ _ _ Other Agency Case Comments see note Narrative see note SSS Note Date and time fields can include a dash to indicate a range other fields can include a star as a Search multiple character wildcard a question mark as a single character wildcard or a pound sign as a single digit wildcard For narrative and comment fields include on either end of keyword e g drugs Cancel After the Search button is clicked the database is searched and the number of incidents meeting the specified conditions is announced to the user see Exhibit A 11 In the example shown in Exhibit A 10 13 incident matched the search criteria Exhibit A 11 Search Results Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 84 School Crime Operations Package Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 85 At this point users have a number of options They can view details of the records matching the search criteria see Exhibit A 12 Exhibit A 12 Browsing Search Results School Crime Operat
25. Referred to FRC No Action Taken Other Weapons Firecracker Gun Hands Feet Knife Matches PE Equipment School Supplies Sharp Pointed Instrument Sling Shoot Stick Stink Bomb Toy Gun Other The original project schedule called for School COP to be installed at the three schools in January 2003 The schools would also share a common database installed on a common network folder In fact the software was not installed until after the start of the 2003 2004 school year primarily because the police department project manager left her position in January 2003 and a new manager was not hired until the summer In addition it was decided Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites that the three schools would not share a common database both because of concerns about staff at one school seeing incident details at the other schools and because the school district s overworked information technology staff was not able to set up the common database in a timely manner As a result each school collected School COP data in their own database The police department project manager installed the software at the three schools in November 2003 The software was installed on the principal s and assistant principal s PC at Washington Elementary School on the counselor s PC at Adams Elementary School and on the principal s PC at Jefferson Elementary School After each installation she spent abo
26. Summary West City has a population of 450 000 living in an area of 70 square miles The city s school district has 90 schools and 100 000 students The school district s Security Department functions in largely the same manner as a municipal police department with a 24 hour dispatch center and 45 sworn patrol security officers who assist local school administrators in handling criminal and non criminal calls for service The chief of the Security Department became interested in generating more comprehensive reports than an existing Microsoft Access application could provide After he learned about School COP he asked a school district software consultant to investigate the feasibility and usefulness of using School COP The consultant reported that School COP was far superior to the Access application in its ability to collect summarize and report incident related data As a result the Security Department chief decided in July 2003 to implement School COP department wide Since then School COP has been used for three main purposes e Patrol allocation The department is using School COP to redeploy security officers among the four patrol areas on a daily basis e Sharing reports Every two weeks the chief furnishes the superintendent of schools with reports generated by School COP that document where incidents are occurring information the superintendent never received before e Making the case for additional officers Surp
27. Taken Notes About Action Taken Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 26 Benefits At Washington Elementary School incident data entry in School COP began near the end of 2003 with roughly 25 30 incidents being entered per month In keeping with the focus on the grant only incidents suspected to involve bullying are entered Data entry began later in January 2004 at the Adams and Jefferson schools In contrast to Washington these two schools have been entering all incidents not just those involving bullying Combined the two schools are entering roughly 30 40 incidents per week In general the schools feel that they have not entered sufficient data into School COP to conduct much analysis One exception is that administrators at the Washington Elementary School indicated that they quickly noticed how bullying incidents are clustering in and around bathrooms They plan to adjust supervision policies to address this problem These administrators also report that School COP has helped with day to day handling of disciplinary cases including helping staff monitor the behavior and actions taken against students frequently reported for bullying and providing backup documentation when speaking with parents of bullying offenders and victims The three schools envision other future uses of School COP data once they have collect several months of data These include e When configuring
28. and 2 activities non incident related activities the SROs are involved in Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 61 The supervisors customized some of the incident type categories principally ensuring that they were the same as those in the police department s case list for example adding CHINS Children in Need of Supervision but also adding a few other categories such as Medical Emergency because an SRO was involved in a medical crisis precisely during this time The supervisors completely changed the categorization of activities Instead of using the five default categories that come with School COP administrative advising mentoring classroom activity law enforcement and safe school preparation the supervisors defined three categories extracurricular school and law enforcement 1 Extracurricular activities include dances and sporting events 2 School activities include mentoring and parent meetings and 3 Law enforcement includes activities SROs engage in that while not performed in response to an incident that occurred at the school are nevertheless law related Examples include law enforcement training or assist detectives during investigations In total 17 different types of activities within the above three categories were defined Because there is still room for confusion with this subcategory SROs sometimes ask the sergeants whether something they did is an i
29. because the secretary receptionist was familiar with backing up archiving and restoring data through her experience with the Access application she was able to learn these same functions for School COP with little difficulty At the beginning of the new school year the Security Department s assistant chief began entering every incident report into School COP that required action from a school district officer This enabled the department to track all patrol officer activity He also entered calls handled directly by the West City police department that do not involve school district security staff but take place on school grounds so that a more accurate picture of the school safety issues could be ascertained from School COP Incident data are entered after an officer s field documents are completed typically within 72 hours of the original incident but sometimes the same day The assistant chief spends a total of 15 to 30 minutes each day entering the incident related data from about 10 records including date and time school type of incident weapon type of drug narrative of the event and police report number Interestingly the district continues to enter call for service data into the Access application that is the Access application is used in the dispatch center to enter in real time facts about each call for service and School COP is used to record facts about those calls for service that require a response from a Security D
30. building the map are shown on a single screen as opposed to a series of question and answer screens enabling users to quickly change the map and more importantly be reminded of what they mapped In trading off ease of use the screen does limit the user in terms of what can be mapped currently the data layers can only include one of the incident severity or incident type codes in addition to a date and time range On the other hand other map layers e g police data in either bitmap or ESRI shapefile format can be included in the map Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 88 Exhibit A 15 Multi Layer Map Mapping Screen GYMNASIUM Learning Iligh School 1 Pick Incident Type Mumbar of 2 Pick Date and Time Range Date to Type Drug Possession vi 1 teat SEa Time fo to 2400 Display Other Maps Zoom To Type Alcohol x 4 lt none gt amp 3 Pick School and Area c Ty pe Tobacco z A i School Leming High School x lt none gt d Any smaller icons on map represent Area within LHS Buil ding krne H School proportionately smaller numbers of incidents Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 89 School COP Viewer Description The School COP Viewer is a modified version of School COP that enables users to view but not add edit or delete incident information The Viewer is intended for sites that have i
31. department met to discuss how to customize School COP Over the next 1 1 2 hours the committee went through each of the School COP code tables and decided what codes to delete and what new codes to add The list of incident types see the box Southwest School District s School COP Customization in particular was greatly expanded based on a list of 27 behaviors that one of the school principals had compiled from what he had observed at his school The incident code list represents a stark contrast to the default incident code list that comes with School COP which focuses largely on criminal activity The committee also overhauled e the list of actions taken to reflect the wide range of options available to elementary school administrators and e the list of weapons again to reflect those common on elementary school campuses Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 22 Following this meeting a police department analyst entered these new codes in School COP In addition she set up the mapping features using a computerized floor plan of each school Using Microsoft Paint the analyst added landmarks on the school grounds e g parking lots playgrounds to the maps This effort took the analyst about four hours Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 23 Southwest School District s School COP Customization Incident Types Arguing Over Game Biting
32. i Exit Administrators also use School COP to compile e information for the superintendent on criminal incidents i e number by month at the school e the required information that must accompany a student who is transferred to an alternative school i e all information related to each incident in which the student was involved Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 18 e annual reports summarizing disciplinary actions taken during the year e g number of suspensions and expulsions and e documentation for suspension hearings and other disciplinary proceedings i e incident reports for all incidents in which the student was involved While as noted above the SRO did set up School COP s mapping feature no incident maps have yet been produced This is primarily because the system has been used mainly to support day to day administration of discipline rather than problem solving or safe school planning Benefits Implementation of School COP at South Middle School has increased both the quantity and quality of information collected and automated on school incidents Administrators have used this information to streamline and improve school disciplinary processes School COP users reported that the most important benefit is saving time when they have to find out a student s disciplinary history or compile disciplinary information for the superintendent or other persons outside the schoo
33. in School COP than in Excel because if the information in School COP isn t entered in exactly the right way for example distinguishing between in school and out of school suspensions the data won t be merged if I want a tally The fields are predetermined so it forces you to have the ability to sort the data accurately Also different people can enter data without having to tell each other when they do it Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 35 The assistant principal and security officer believe the software will result in more reliable data than if every school s assistant principal uses his or her own idiosyncratic data tracking collection system In addition when the entire school district implements School COP it will be possible to track incidents centrally and in a consistent manner The current non uniform system makes it very cumbersome to combine the data from different assistant principals on weapons violations and suspensions for inclusion in the school district s annual report to the state While in general the assistant principal feels that the data from School COP have not provided any surprises about the nature or frequency of discipline problems the information has been useful in confirming suspicions For example the amount of misconduct on school buses revealed by School COP surprised school administrators although they already suspected there were some problems associ
34. involved in safety discipline or working with at risk students should have access to School COP this included in addition to himself two assistant principals two counselors and the SRO The school receptionist would have primary responsibility for data entry Thus the SRO configured School COP so that all six users could share a common School COP database see the diagram below As a result new information entered in School COP became immediately accessible to all the School COP users Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 16 School COP System Configuration in South Middle School p Principal Assistant Principal Receptionist Data Entry School COP Database i Assistant Principal School Counselor Officer Ss School Counselor School Resource im Kw im Before making School COP available to the administrators the SRO customized School COP see the sidebar in Chapter 2 Customizing School COP In particular the SRO entered all the disciplinary codes that their old discipline system used The SRO also imported a map of the school building into School COP and defined 75 separate locations on the map one for each room or hallway in the building The SRO spent 15 20 minutes training each of the School COP users According to the SRO
35. make that information accessible to school Tom Rich administrators and other persons with school safety responsibility School VantagePoint i Project Director The SchoolVantagepoint coordinator at the school district can Abt Associates Inc 55 Wheeler St H P Cambridge MA 02138 i create user accounts to control access to SchoolVantagepoint Email i specify which reports and information individual users can access tom_rich abtassoc com i upload School COP data customize the home page System Requirements This site is best viewed in Internet Explore 5 0 and higher 4 free version is available here a rr Ry As discussed below the site s system administrator can easily modify any of the text on the Home Page for example change the Welcome to SchoolVantagepoint to Welcome to Anytown s School Safety System The system administrator can also change the list of Web links section in the upper left corner 10 SchoolVantagepoint is a name project staff used for a demo version of Web School COP Sites using Web School COP would select their own names and modify the Web page headers accordingly Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 97 To login to the system the user clicks the Login gt gt link in the upper right part of the Home Page A login dialog box then appears Exhibit A 22 Web School COP Login E School antage Point Portal Registration Mic
36. oe Totals By School and 2002 11 27 16 59 38 2002 10 25 11 29 05 lt lt Logout Incidents 76 IncidentsList_SummaryOfincidents oidents List Summary of 2002 11 27 11 16 49 2002 10 22 15 39 57 Items 1 5 of 5 javascript __doPostBack DB_Reports20 WP_ReportsList1883 WP custDataGrid _ctl4 Ib1 Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 104 To see the output of a report or graph the user simply clicks on the name of the report For example Exhibit A 29 shows what happens when the user clicks the Incident Summary List for a School link shown in Exhibit A 28 In general compared to the Windows version of School COP Web School COP reports can have far more functionality including dynamic drop down lists i e the content of the drop down depends on other selections made on the screen The system administrator can also modify static text on existing reports or insert the site s logo in the report none of which is possible with the Windows version Exhibit A 29 shows a Summary of Incidents for a particular school report ET School antage Point Portal Incidents Reports Microsoft Internet Explorer J5 jaj x Eie Edt View Favorites Tools Help oe 2 a a fE 3 B mi a 2 Back Forward Stop Refresh Home Search Favorites History Mail Print Edit Discuss Address http 10 121 210 74 svp main aspx dbID DB_Reports20 Go Schoo
37. of two middle schools grades 6 8 in a school district that also has four elementary schools a high school and two alternative high schools There are about 3 500 students in the school district 42 percent of whom are eligible for the Federal Government s free and reduced cost lunch program Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 28 The approximately 600 students at Far West Middle School represent a mix of youth from working class and white collar families with 51 percent eligible for the free and reduced cost lunch program The school has 40 teachers The school s most serious although infrequent misconduct is fighting but there have also been some thefts However school administrators faculty and security staff believe that their school is very safe The school district has two civilian security officers both retired commissioned law enforcement officers and a full time sworn School Resource Officer who serves the entire school district Every school holds quarterly safety meetings to prepare a formal report to the district assistant superintendent identifying its most pressing safety issues The school district allocates safety resources based on these reports and on common knowledge about where the need is for example the district installed surveillance cameras first in the high school because of anecdotal evidence of more problems there compared with problems in other schools
38. percent of its sworn officers to the military As a result those department divisions that lost officers sought to make up for their reductions in personnel by asking the chief to transfer officers from elsewhere in the department to their divisions The police chief for example abandoned the D A R E program and transferred its officers to the depleted divisions although eventually the State picked up the cost of paying for replacement D A R E officers School COP has also benefited the individual SROs According to one SRO The software provides statistical data that are usable in many ways On the law enforcement side we can legitimately track incidents pinpoint where they occur in the building identify high risk areas In fact unrelated to the introduction of School COP this SRO s school had already made arrangements to install video cameras in high traffic and high incident areas throughout the school When the principal invited him to the meeting with the video camera vendor representatives the SRO brought and demonstrated the software to them While most of the locations for placing the cameras were self evident e g the commons area the software was invaluable for showing the people who have the contract why we re putting the cameras where we were Furthermore the school had been planning to install the cameras only indoors However the SRO was able to demonstrate through School COP s mapping capability that co
39. requires SROs to submit a monthly activity log that documents what they did during the month In addition to describing criminal incidents the logs typically include classes taught meetings with school administrators and instances of mentoring of at risk students Most of the SROs hand wrote their logs The SROs do not have access to school district disciplinary records such as suspensions and expulsions or to records of minor student misconduct such as in school detention unless requested by the officer for official purposes The Decision to Use School COP An SRO who is responsible for three of the elementary schools read about School COP while perusing questions and answers that had been posted to an electronic bulletin board on the National Association of School Resource Officers NASRO Web site After an officer had posted a message to the bulletin board asking if anyone could recommend a record keeping system for SROs three officers responded and endorsed School COP see the box Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 49 Postings to the NASRO Newsgroup Regarding School COP Question My chief is wanting me to come up with a data base of all my activities that I do at school I am not able to come up with what I need to put in the data base to be most effective I am wanting to use Microsoft Office as a database Any input on how and what needs to be added would be greatly appreciated An
40. ser to add edit or delete incidents The user also does not have access to the School COP Administrative Menu Available on the School COP Web site Web School Enables sites to provide access to School COP data via a eb browser Access to specific reports can also be limited o specific users Contact the School COP Project Director at om_rich abtassoc com for more information on Web chool COP Web School COP must be installed on either he site s Intranet or on a secure third party Web server How has School COP been disseminated A fully functioning version of School COP including on line help and a sample database containing 100 incidents at a fictitious school was produced in January 2001 Since then School COP has been disseminated in two major ways e Download from School COP web site Starting in June 2001 School COP has been available for downloading from www schoolcopsoftware com From June 2001 through December 2003 School COP has been downloaded a total of 4 368 times see Exhibit 2 3 The Web site does not ask persons downloading the software how they heard about School COP but informal conversations with users indicates that The Web based version of School COP which requires a Microsoft Windows 2000 Server to run does not have data entry features data are imported from the Windows based School COP Contact the School COP Project Director at tom_rich abtassoc com for additional information on Web School COP
41. ten SROs are in order to avoid the possibility of other divisions in the police department such as patrol traffic or detectives raiding the SROs to increase their own personnel The software also reduces the time the SROs have to spend recording their activities compared with the handwritten logs they used to fill out In addition according to one SRO We can legitimately pinpoint where incidents occur in the building and identify high risk areas In fact when the principal invited the school s SRO to a meeting with video camera vendor representatives who were installing cameras throughout the school he demonstrated the software to them As result he was able to document that considerable vandalism was taking place outside the school building thereby making a compelling case for installing cameras outside as well as inside the building Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites The City of Midwest with a population of about 130 000 is 200 miles from any city of considerable size As a result it has become a regional center for the medical care banking and credit card industries as well as a major shopping center A state prison also provides employment The city school district s 33 schools include 23 elementary schools 5 middle schools and 5 high schools with a combined student enrollment of over 20 000 students The Midwest police department has roughly 200 sworn officers includ
42. the action taken if any against a person involved in an incident o Involvement codes which describe how the person was involved in the incident e g victim witness perpetrator o Race codes which describe the race of a person who was involved in the incident o Special characteristics codes which describe special characteristics e g a member of a particular gang of persons involved in incidents e Build the School COP Geobase which is used to describe the location where incidents occurred To build a School COP Geobase o Enter information about your school s on the School Screen o Decide how many areas will be established in each school and if you want to use School COP s mapping features use a scanner to create a digital image of existing hard copy map or draw a new map using Microsoft Paint or some other graphics program o Enter the areas in each of your schools on the Area Screen o Specify the locations in each of the areas on the Location Screen If you are using the School COP mapping feature you can point to where each location is on the map Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites School COP balances ease of use and functionality by offering a variety of techniques for analyzing school incidents including tabular reports bar graphs pie charts and maps Some methods appeal to novice computer users others appeal to computer experts You will generally con
43. to lobby for continued program funding see above But the comprehensive documentation also meets the lieutenant s objective of knowing what my people are doing that is improving his ability to monitor and supervise his officers The database also makes it possible to compare the types and rates of incidents among the district s schools see the box Comparing Incidents Among Schools Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 56 Comparing Incidents Among Schools School COP has enabled the police department to make school to school comparisons of criminal incidents Fortunately there have been no conflicts with the school administration over the department s ability to prepare what could be seen as invidious distinctions among the schools The comparisons have not created conflict in part because the schools incident totals are very similar The schools lack of expressed concern over these comparisons may also reflect what the lieutenant refers to as a good working relationship between the police department and the schools In addition to vastly increasing documentation about school incidents because the SROs almost always enter the information into School COP within 24 hours the new software has reduced the often two week delay in computerizing incidents using the Records Management System School COP also decreased the time the SROs have to spend recording incidents
44. Abt Abt Associates Ine Cambridge MA Lexington MA Hadley MA Bethesda MD Washington DC Chicago IL Cairo Egypt Johannesburg South Africa Abt Associates Inc 55 Wheeler Street Cambridge MA 02138 School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites Final Report May 2004 Prepared for National Institute of Justice 8107 Street N W Washington DC 20531 Attn Debra Stoe Prepared by Tom Rich Project Director Peter Finn National Institute of Justice Sarah Hart Director Debra Stoe Grant Monitor Prepared for the National Institute of Justice U S Department of Justice by Abt Associates Inc under Grant Number 2001 IJ CX 0026 Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U S Department of Justice The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance the Bureau of Justice Statistics the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the Office for Victims of Crime Contents Part I Introducti h ccasscscsescsscasevecssavssacedsncessvvetcesbesuessscseasexens densa case pbhacseagensereseedconscaansscoesnsehes 1 Chapter 1 How to Use This Rep rt iressnrendannete ne ads a 1 Chapter 2 Overview of School COP sssesssessssessessssssssesseeessesssrssssseseessesssessseeseesssesee 3 Part II Case S
45. COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 76 Geobase Construction The most important part of customizing School COP is building the geobase Users create their own geographic description of their school s in School COP using a three tiered system of schools areas and locations Any number of schools can be entered in School COP using the screen shown in Exhibit A 3 Exhibit A 3 Defining Schools School Crime Operations Package Help School Information Use this form to enter or edit information about schools for which you will be collecting incident information Click Exit to return to the administrative menu SchoolName EEM School Number 123455 District 123456 Number Address fi 500 Main Street Learning MA Principal Dv Raymond Phone Number E 7 555 1212 Safety Contact Mr John Grandview Safety Contact g 7 555 1212 Phone Number Kg gt gt gt gt Record 1 of 1 Each school that users define can be divided into one or more areas with a specific map associated with each area For example a modest sized two story school might have four areas one for each floor one for the school grounds and one for the bus routes Exhibit A 4 shows the map that has been assigned to the area LHS Building which is one area within the school named Learning High School The label Record 1 of 2 below the map indicates that this particular school has two areas 7 The names of all schools and pe
46. Enter Chart Type the chart selection screen appears Z SelectChartType Web Page Dialog Groups Chart Views Clustered Bars pd Bars C EE Horizontal Bars C amp Lines C kit Combination Chart C Pies Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 107 Importing School COP Databases Data collected with the Windows version of School COP are imported into Web School COP via the Incident Import page accessible via the Post menu bar Exhibit A 32 Importing Windows School COP Databases E School antage Point Portal Post SchoolCop Database Microsoft Internet Explorer Eie Edt view Favorites Tools Hep gt QW aS Content Layout Settings Help School A Vantagepoint ra aon Select Site Logout HOME POST INCIDENTS ADMIN FUNCTIONS PORTAL TOOLS i Incident Import E i List of files for import i A Search by User Name alue OoOo o O S Search Refresh Time User Description Records Status Import Date 11 15 2002 4 09 10 PM Administrative User 2 years of test data 210 Imported 11 15 2002 4 09 16 PM Z ss Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 108
47. Incident Based System Student Based System Incident number unique identifier Referral number unique identifier Reported by Referred by Incident type Incident type referral reason Incident date and time Incident date and time Incident location Incident location General description of incident General description of incident Investigator Investigator For each person involved in the incident e Person s Name e Identifying information e g student ID e How involved e g perpetrator victim e Action taken e g suspension Student s name Identifying information e g student ID Action taken e g suspension Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 73 Windows School COP Description This section provides an overview of the Windows version of School COP Installation and Login The School COP installation routine conforms to Windows standards and thus will be familiar to anyone who has previously installed any software The installation routine creates commands off the Windows Start button for running 1 School COP with a sample database containing roughly 100 incidents at a mythical school 2 School COP with an empty database into which the user will enter their own data and 3 the School COP help system Starting School COP displays the login screen School COP comes configured with one logi
48. Middle School Prior to receiving the grant the school telephoned the county sheriff when law enforcement assistance was required and any available fielded patrol car would be dispatched to the school One of the patrol deputies assigned to patrol volunteered for the SRO position and started work at the school in the spring of 2000 Prior to the 2000 2001 school year the SRO received basic and advanced SRO training and attended an SRO conference sponsored by the state s SRO association To fulfill a COPS In Schools grant requirement the SRO and the South Middle School principal attended a three day COPS In School training conference in early 2001 At one of the required conference sessions they received the School COP CD and heard a brief 20 minute overview of the software Immediately after the School COP presentation the SRO loaded School COP on the laptop he brought to the COPS In School conference and explored the software s sample database during the conference Since he had been hand writing reports of criminal incidents occurring at the school and producing hand tallies for annual reports he immediately felt that School COP would reduce the amount of time he spent writing incident reports and year end summary reports The Decision to Use School COP During the remainder of the 2000 2001 school year the SRO used School COP to record information on criminal incidents occurring at the school Since he was using School COP for h
49. ROs who want to teach while others do not As a result using the data to compare SROs level of activities would be unfair e The data would tell nothing about the quality of the SROs work how effective they are as counselors for example One SRO said that My supervisor trusts me He s said over and over that that he would not use the software for monitoring purposes reminding me that you were picked as an SRO because you can work on your own 999 The software also reduces the time the SROs have to spend recording their activities compared with the ridiculous handwritten logs they used to fill out According to one SRO It was like a revolution for statistical reporting Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 69 Appendix The appendix contains e A discussion of the differences between incident based systems e g School COP and person based systems e g student information systems e A detailed description of both the Windows and Web versions of School COP Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 70 Differences Between Incident Based and Student Based Systems There are important but perhaps subtle differences between incident based systems the model used in School COP and student based systems the model used in discipline referral systems and student information systems Three key differences involve When d
50. Web Application subdirectory of the zip file to your Server and rename the directory as appropriate Then use the Internet Information Server management console to configure the directory as a Web application tom_rich abtassoc com Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 96 Home Page and Role Based Security Exhibit A 21 below shows Web School COP s home page created for the demo application Exhibit A 21 Web School COP Home Page 3 School antage Point Portal Home Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edit View Favorites Tools Help Pe ee at ee ls ee a Back Forward Stop Refresh Home Search Favorites History Mail Edit Address j http 10 121 210 74 svp main aspx dbID dash_Home Go School A O e Guest quest Vantagepoint HOME Related Links gt no mars Prooram Welcome to SchoolVantagepoint School COP Web Site i COPS Office i This new Web site offers exciting new features to users of School COP a widely used free Abt Associates Inc i software package for entering and analyzing school incident and crime information i i Bi EE Technical Assistance i With SchoolVantagepoint School COP users can make their School COP data available to any Need help authorized person with a Web browser For example a school district security office that uses For project support contact School COP to collect district wide information can now
51. a valuable tool and has supported the SRO in the implementation of School COP and 2 the SRO is technically competent has extensive knowledge about School COP and is a strong advocate within the school for School COP Of note is that South Middle School continues as of January 2004 to use School COP even after the SRO who originally advocated School COP was re assigned to regular patrol duties in the county prior to the start of the 2003 2004 school year The principal in fact is leading an effort to get every middle and high school in the county to use School COP South Middle School is located in a largely rural area approximately 50 miles from a city of 200 000 residents in the southern part of the United States South Middle School is one of three middle schools in an 18 school district with 7 000 students 20 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunches The approximately 800 students at South Middle School are divided in three houses that emphasis science technology and the arts respectively School staff believe that their school is very safe and that the students are generally good kids Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites Program Origin In 1999 the school district received a grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS In Schools grant program and used that funding to create a School Resource Officer SRO position at South
52. accidentally and a district security officer responded to check out the area e Example 3 call required assistance from city police an employee s car was vandalized and a formal police report was required Program Origin During the 1990s the dispatch center began using an Excel spreadsheet to track incoming calls with each row in the spreadsheet containing information on a single call for service Prior to that calls were logged by hand on paper sheets In December 1999 the Security Department hired a consultant to develop a customized Microsoft Access application that mirrored the Excel spreadsheet Although no additional information was captured there were significant advantages to switching to the Access application e the ability to have two dispatchers enter and view incoming incident reports at the same time e an easy to use data entry screen that would not require dispatchers to be familiar with Excel e the ability to store incident data in one place for easy backup and for subsequent historical review and e being able to prepare presentable summary reports for review by other agencies in the district The two dispatcher workstations the shift manager and the school district receptionist each have a personal computer with the Access application The chief his secretary receptionist and one shift supervisor also have the software on their personal computers Every call made to the dispatch center is log
53. adsheets each time we entered new data As a result he decided to switch to School COP Implementation Process Teachers at Far West Middle School had been using a short half page form to report student misconduct However the assistant principal was eager to ensure that teachers used incident categories that matched his customized options in School COP As a result he created a new discipline referral form see the box to ensure that teachers options for checking off incident types and prior interventions matched the options he had customized for School COP Revising the Teachers Discipline Referral Form to Accommodate School COP The assistant principal gave an introduction to School COP at an in service training for faculty in August 2002 as part of his explanation for having developed the new discipline referral form Some teachers initially resisted using the new form because it requires them to provide information about each incident including type location and time of day that the old form did not ask for However the information is pre identified and teachers need only check the appropriate box in each category with the option of providing further explanations The assistant principal enters the data from the new discipline forms into School COP himself He uses the information primarily to support day to day discipline management and tracking He finds the software particularly useful for purposes o
54. airen rakeet aa enanta 43 Implementati n ProcESS irria iins eae e a er aa EES 44 BENEFIS eneen a aaa a a a ON EAS 45 Chapter 7 Eastern Police Department s sssessesseseseseseserrsessrrseserestseresreeresresrenresrenresseses 48 The Decision to Use School COP essesseeseseseseseseseresrseresrerresrseresresenressensesseses 49 The Implementation Process sseseeeeeeeeeseseresessrrsesereseserestsreesrserestesesressenrenseses 52 Benefits n aren a A EE EE E EE E RE 56 Chapter 8 Midwest Police Department essesssseseseeeserrseeeresrseresrssresreeresresresersrensessesee 59 The Decision t Use School COP ocrais ananena e e an 60 Implementation Process noss ionen a a shasacanns sb etadeaeenan bas 6l TVS FUE Ss aa Sd hot adh a a e aa e bce ETR E R TAT 66 Appendix sas cccccsacevesssevsescscesssecsececaceuseiwecessussostenssuesbsvinpsaaceabobvessetesssouvsssqubosiesssvaducecepnounesacacebeens 70 Differences Between Incident Based and Student Based Systems eeeeeeeeeees 71 Windows School COP Description tiiscis seacisisccss sean cassscdeaavenssscaisnneaadsacesadease caddsevecoudbans 74 Installation and Osii kw cipgiit aoe ants a E a ists 74 Set up and CUSTOM ZCLION sses re a e EEA ainni aat 75 Patt ENUY asne ea n R ANANS 81 Datt Analysis n e a O E E R E R o a aE 82 School COP Viewer Description sessssesessssessseessessseseetsresssesseeesteseeesssssseeseeeseessse 90 Installation eonia iE E R E 90 Mlewer FeattreSinnnsir nii
55. ar time school area location incident type severity weapon special circumstance or status Clicking the Graph Type button can change the bar graph to a line graph pie chart or 3 D graph in which a second variable can be included on the graph Graphs can be pasted into word processing or presentation documents by clicking the copy button on the screen Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 86 Exhibit A 13 Records Meeting Search Criteria Displayed Graphically Graphing Screen Graph Type Enter a title for the graph then click Refresh Title use semi colon for line feed Bar NM Incidents by MonthArea LHS Building Incident Type Trespassing School Learning High School Refresh Title fe Rotation Degrees b m Incidents by Month Area LHS Building Number of incidents 13 Count By Incident Type Trespassing Month F School Learning High School on Sep 1999 Oct 1999 Nov 1999 Dec 1999 Jan 2000 Feb 2000 Mar 2000 Apr 2000 May 2000 Jun 2000 Jul 2000 Aug 2000 Sep 2000 Oct 2000 Nov 2000 Dec 2000 Jan 2001 Finally if an incident search criteria includes a specific school and area the results of the search can be mapped Exhibit A 14 shows the map produced if the Map button on Exhibit A 12 is clicked As noted earlier this section all School COP maps are graduated symbol maps in which symbol sizes vary in proportion to the number of incidents at each locat
56. are Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 55 program does not capture the total picture of school misconduct That s not a big deal because of the overall nature of the schools here The police department also does not provide school officials with direct access to School COP or to its data However the lieutenant argues that because there is regular routine word of mouth data sharing there is no compelling reason to give the schools access Furthermore the lieutenant reports that city MIS officials would throw up a red flag if school officials were to have access to something on the police department s server Benefits The department s main purpose in adopting School COP was to provide evidence that the city should continue to fund the four SROs supported by the COPS in Schools grant after it expires The chief will continue to pay for the four officers who were liaisons before he converted them into SROs School COP seems to have achieved this goal The lieutenant used information and exhibits generated by School COP to give to the chief to use in a presentation to the school board at the end of the 2002 2003 school year For the presentation the SRO advocate prepared a series of maps and graphs including incidents by school incidents by type and locations of incidents on the school grounds The lieutenant reported that The board was impressed As a result of this and simi
57. are In doing so the report helps you determine whether you should use School COP If you are already using School COP the report will provide you with ideas on other interesting and creative ways to use School COP This report is divided into 2 parts and 1 appendix e Part I provides background information on School COP including its key features implementation options and dissemination history e Part II describes how six different sites implemented used and benefited from School COP e The appendix shows a number of the School COP screens and provides other technical information about the software Additional information on School COP is available Visit the School COP Web site www schoolcopsoftware com to get your copy of School COP as well as software updates news support tips and other information about School COP Also available are the following written documents e School COP A Software Package for Enhancing School Safety The final report of the NIJ project that funded development of School COP is available at http www abtassociates com reports 200189127272_67259MRCHIPS pdf Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 1 e The School COP user manual The user manual contains step by step instructions on how to use School COP including a detailed description of each screen in the software The user manual is installed automatically when you install School COP e Guide to Usin
58. are absent on the Viewer s Incident Screen Exhibit A 18 School COP Incident Screen School Crime Operations Package School Incidents Dug eled Feos O Closed referred to police A za Exhibit A 19 School COP Viewer Incident Screen Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 92 School Crime Operations Package iewer School Incidents l Leaming High School LHS Building Hallway to Boys Locker Room Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 93 School COP Merge Description The School COP Merge application allows you to combine several School COP databases into a single database which in turn can be run using School COP The application may be useful if for example staff at several individual schools use School COP at their school and staff at the school district office want to be able to analyze incidents entered at all the schools In this case local school officials could e mail their School COP databases to the district office where staff could use the Merge application to combine all the school level databases into a single database Installation The School COP Merge installation routine conforms to Windows standards and thus will be familiar to anyone who has previously installed any software The installation routine creates commands off th
59. ated with the buses The assistant principal also knew that there was a problem with 6 graders in the hallways but says I had never really considered the students solutions mixing grade levels and staggering recess times The students suggestions put the problem on the front burner of his list of problems he needed to address The assistant principal also plans to use the empirical data to remind teachers in nearby classrooms of the need to at least poke their heads briefly into the hallways between classes One teacher felt that the assistant principal could use the information to determine which faculty members were not doing their hall monitoring and then singling them out for remediation In addition he suggested If most incidents are occurring in one corridor you can use stricter monitors there even move them so they teach in a classroom closer to the problem area Another option is to shift one of the two teachers aides regularly assigned to the school cafeteria to hallway duty Because the school district allocates teachers aides by school the substitute assistant principal thought that district administrators could use School COP data to reallocate aides to schools with trouble spots He also felt that the school might be able to use the data on the disproportionate number of incidents on school buses to lobby the school district for the installation of cameras on more buses Abt Associates Inc Schoo
60. ave occurred the previous day was between 10 00 a m and noon not mid afternoon Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 68 The SRO Supervisors Reject Using School COP to Monitor SRO Activities An SRO reported that another SRO who covered for him while he was out of town for training said that the substitute SRO told him to make sure to include in School COP the incidents I handled with my name on them because the covering SRO wanted the supervising sergeants to know that he had been busy As this suggests the supervisors could use the software to track the activities of individual SROs to ensure they are performing appropriately especially since the SROs enter the number of hours they spend on each activity However the supervisors indicated that for a number of reasons at least for the present they do not intend to use the data in this manner e The SROs would resent being watched e The data do not necessarily give an accurate picture of everything the SROs do because they engage in a number of activities they either do not have the time to enter or forget to enter e Some SROs spend more time on some activities than do other SROs because of their particular interests and talents for example some do a lot of teaching because they enjoy it and are good at it whereas other SROs engage in considerable mentoring In addition some schools facilitate the efforts of S
61. career Also kids bounce between schools so it can track them even when they switch schools The ways you can sort the information is what makes it so useful And it s easy to use Assistant superintendent We can also use it to convince parents that their kid isn t an angel And the school district has to develop a bullying policy so it Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 38 could be valuable for tracking victims Security officer The main reason to use it is for the end of year reports Normally every assistant principal has to give me their information about guns and so forth for the state report and it s a crisis I prepare the report by meeting individually with each principal to secure the data and then give the data to the superintendent s secretary to compile School COP will help tremendously with preparing the state report because the data are so accessible Over the next year Pd like the secretaries to input the data Assistant superintendent Anything else we need to discuss Security officer One other thing I m going to be able to access information from School COP for use in court cases subpoenas and placement hearings e g for special education students who have been expelled from the regular high school but have to be placed somewhere Once the school system has implemented the software district wide school distr
62. cifying the location of new incidents using the grid approach e g rather than picking Faculty Parking Lot from the list of pre entered locations users could simply click on the exact spot in the parking lot where the incident occurred In the end however the grid approach was not selected because again of the project goal of making School COP usable by as many agencies as possible and using the grid approach would require agencies to have and use maps to define locations The School COP approach outlined in this section allows for detailed mapping but does not require users to have maps That is schools areas and locations can be defined without reference to any maps Exhibit A 5 Assigning Locations to Areas School Crime Operations Package BEE Help Locations within Schools and Areas Select the desired School and Area and then use this form to enter or edit locations within the selected School and Area Click Exit to return to the admin menu School beaming High School Area LHS Building lt E gt gt 5 a JRecord 1 of 2 Locations in this School and Area Name lt amp Description Geographic Coordinates click on map to assign x 378 y 283 Record 13 of 35 _ _ gt Learning High School an coe ve am oe im a eaaa Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 79 Geocoding Incidents To complete the discussion of how Schoo
63. classrooms for the next school year School COP data will be studied to help ensure that students are not placed with others with whom they get into trouble e Teachers will receive summarizes of bullying incidents involving students assigned to their class e At the end of each school year the schools will study the locations where incidents occur in particular whether the number of incidents at these locations is increasing or decreasing and then adjust supervision policies accordingly For the bullying grant the key forum for problem identification analysis and response will be monthly meetings at each school with teachers at which summary data from School COP will be presented These meetings will begin in the spring of 2004 Whether the summary data will simply confirm suspected problems or identify new problems is unknown The project coordinator at the police department feels however that the teachers will be surprised at how widespread the problem is Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 27 Chapter 5 Far West Middle School Summary Far West Middle School is located in a city of 80 000 people The school s 600 students represent a mix of youth from working class and white collar families Before using School COP the Far West Middle School assistant principal had been using his own unsatisfactory according to him Excel spreadsheet to track discipline referrals Now he
64. d by the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act FERPA he refused to allow the SROs to enter any student names in School COP The administrator was concerned for example that if SROs acceded to requests for student information from a detective this sharing of data would violate the statute The police department agreed not to enter any names because it depended on the schools to agree to install School COP on the SROs computers which school principals had provided to the SROs The administrator did agree that student names could be entered if the SROs were officially declared to be school officials However for legal and other reasons the police department refused to allow the SROs to be designated in this manner Furthermore entering student names is a concern not just for the school system but also for the police department which is worried about someone hacking into its computer network and obtaining the names Reporting Data to the SRO Supervisors Every month the SROs e mail or provide on diskette their School COP data to their supervisor The supervisors then merge the ten sets of data using School COP s Merge Utility This feature which the supervising sergeants had only minor problems using makes it possible to combine all the SROs data into a single database which in turn can be analyzed with School COP The merged database is kept only on the two supervisors computers the SROs ca
65. d not have a list of School COP users from which to select sites we relied on e mail and personal communications e g at school safety conferences with current and potential users to identify possible sites That is as we heard about sites plans to use School COP we invited them to participate in the project as long as the addition of the site preserved our objective of having a mix of sites as defined above Once sites were selected interviews were conducted with a variety of persons at each site including persons involved in the decision to use School COP persons who actually used the software and persons who regularly received School COP reports or data Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 11 As shown in the Table 1 the six sites offer some diversity in terms of the selection criteria described above For example School COP advocates the person who initially heard about School COP and pushed for its implementation include an SRO 2 sites an SRO supervisor 1 site a law enforcement analyst 1 site a school administrator 1 site and a school district security chief 1 site Table 1 Site Characteristics School District Characteristics Primary School COP How Advocate Initially Site Name Schools Advocate Heard About School COP South SRO assigned to South COPS Office Conference Middle Middle School School Southwest Mid Sized Analyst at local law Contac
66. disciplinary action as a result of violating the student code of conduct or some other school rule Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 12 Table 2 Implementation Decisions at the Six Sites Pre School COP Data Person Schools Collection Making for which Automated Decision to School COP What Is System Key Problem Implement Data are Entered in Primary School COP Site Name Used with System School COP Collected School COP Users South Student Poor querying Non user 1 Student 7 Principal Assistant Middle Information and reporting Superintende referrals Principals SRO School System nt Counselors and Secretary Southwest None N A School COP Student 4 Principal Assistant School User referrals Principals and District Principals Counselors Far West Microsoft Poor querying School COP Student 2 Assistant Principal Middle Excel and reporting Advocate referrals school security officer School West School Custom Limited School COP Allincidents 3 Security Office District Microsoft querying and Advocate involving Chief Assistant Chief Security Access reporting security and Secretary Department Application officers Eastern Police Unable to School COP All incidents 9 8 SROs and SRO Police Records document all User SRO involving Supervisor Department System SRO incidents Supervisor SROs Midwest Microsoft Poor querying Supervisor of Allincidents 12 10 SROs and 2 Police Exc
67. duct analyses in one of three ways e The easiest method is to run one of the many canned reports and graphs for example a bar graph showing the number of incidents by location over a particular date range e A single build a map screen enables users to create a multi layer graduated symbol map for example a map showing the building floor plan could include for a particular date range separate layers for drug alcohol and tobacco offenses e The most useful analysis method is first to search for a subset of incidents and then analyze that subset Users can search on any single field e g all incidents involving a weapon or combination of fields e g all incidents occurring inside the building in which girls were victimized Incidents meeting the search criteria can be browsed printed in tabular form graphed or mapped How can School COP be configured As summarized in Exhibit 2 1 there are four basic ways to configure School COP depending on the number of people who use the software and the number of schools for which incident data are collected Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 5 Exhibit 2 1 School COP Implementation Options An assistant principal records in School COP all instances in which a student is referred for disciplinary action A School Resource Officer SRO uses School COP to record information about all incidents in which they are involved
68. e Windows Start button for running 1 the School COP Merge and 2 the School COP Merge help system In order to run the School COP Merge application you must have School COP installed on your computer In addition the School COP executable schoolcop exe should be in the same folder as the School COP Merge executable schoolcopmerge exe Operation Operating the Merge application involves three steps see Exhibit A 20 1 Indicating which School COP databases you want to merge Any number of databases can be merged The application verifies that each database is a valid School COP database NOTE The code tables from the only the first database in the list are copied to the Merged database this means that login IDs and passwords from only the first database in the list can be used on the Merged database 2 Indicating the name and location i e folder of the newly created merged database A default name is provided that includes the current date 3 Merging the databases by clicking the Do Merge button After the databases are merged you can immediately launch School COP with the newly created merged database by clicking the Exit and Run School COP with Merged Database button Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 94 The Exit and Run School COP with a Different Database button can be used to launch School COP with some other database for example a merged database that
69. e of the two civilian security staff are entering data into School COP Any decision to use School COP district wide will involve the assistant superintendent asking the head of the school district s Information Technology IT unit for his opinion of the suitability and usefulness of doing so because IT decides whether to deploy new software packages In turn the IT head will ask his technology specialist for his opinion of the software This process is already well advanced The assistant principal has already shared information about School COP with the IT specialist who as a result has decided he will recommend using it district wide After receiving central office approval he will offer in service training for a core group of users In March 2003 the assistant principal and security officer met with the district assistant superintendent of schools their immediate supervisor to explore using the system district wide The upshot of the meeting was a decision to proceed with implementing the software in every school see the box Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 37 A meeting in March 2003 among the assistant superintendent the Far West Middle School assistant principal and one of the district s two security officers took significant steps toward reaching the assistant principal s goal of implementing School COP district wide Assistant superintendent Thad a software progra
70. ea poor Time Incident Type TT Investigator Ho Entered By Ec t S Severity Status Entry Date paro Ms Agency ase Number Narrative Reports Enteredtkeopelnyaved RementRenart rapt Edding New Record Ta E AE E 7 Find Ent List Sommer Map Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 80 Data Entry There are two School COP data entry screens one for attributes related to the incident see Exhibit A 7 and the other for attributes related to a person involved in the incident see Exhibit A 8 Exhibit A 7 Incident Data Entry Screen School Crime Operations Package School Incidents pom Duged poo m Eie oo Feory O Closed referred to police E mej oj o e e m After the screen in Exhibit A 7 is filled out and saved information about people involved in the incident can be entered by clicking the button labeled Enter Edit People Involved which displays the People Involved Screen see Exhibit A 8 Zero one or more than one persons can be associated with an incident Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 81 Exhibit A 8 People Involved Data Entry Screen School Crime Operations Package Help Persons Involved in Incident 01 9014 Use this form to enter or edit information about persons involved in the incident Click Exit to return to the main incident form
71. ed the police department s School Safety Officer also assigned in the community services division to use School COP to track his activities since he had been recording his activities tediously and not very accurately on 5 X 7 cards In addition to simplifying his job the supervisors wanted to be able to make a case some day that a second School Safety Officer was needed The officer has been giving classes to every elementary school in the city since 1998 as well as to Head Start and pre school programs However the number of elementary schools alone increased from 28 to 32 during this time period forcing him to cut back on the number of classes he can offer Furthermore the existing elementary schools have added new classes Benefits The community services division s main purpose for adopting School COP was to document conclusively how busy and productive the ten SROs are in order to avoid the possibility of other divisions in the police department such as patrol traffic or detectives raiding the Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 66 SROs to increase their own personnel level and to justify continued support of the program by the police administration Although the community services division is being proactive in case other divisions should try to steal its officers there is historical precedent for being concerned After the 9 11 tragedy the police department lost nearly ten
72. ed time period sorted by Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 82 date and time person lists e g persons involved in multiple incidents aggregate incident reports e g the number of incidents by school and type aggregate person reports e g the number of persons involved in incidents by school and action taken and utility reports e g code table listings Exhibit A 9 List of Canned Reports and Graphs School Crime Operations Package Help Graph and Tabular Report Selection Screen Click on the desired report and provide a title date range and sort order Then click Show Report r Available Graphs and Reports Incident Totals By School Area and Location Incident Totals By Severity Incident Totals By Special Circumstances Incident Totals By Status Incident Totals By Weapon Incident Totals By Year Person List Action Taken List Person List Persons Involved in Incidents Person List Persons Involved in Multiple Incidents Person List Persons Receiving Multiple Actions Taken Person Totals By Action Taken Person Totals By Action Taken and Grade Person Totals By Action Taken and Special Characteristics Person Totals By School and Action Taken Person Totals By School Action Taken and Grade Person Totals By School Action Taken and Special Characteristics r Parameters Report Title Person List Persons Involved in Multiple Incidents Date Range
73. el and reporting School COP involving SRO Supervisors Department Advocate SROs Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 13 Chapter 3 South Middle School Summary In early 2001 the School Resource Officer SRO and principal at the South Middle School attended a three day COPS In School training conference There they received the School COP CD and heard a brief 20 minute overview of the software The SRO immediately began using School COP to record information on criminal incidents occurring at the school Later before the start of the 2001 2002 school year the principal decided to stop using their existing system for tracking student referrals and use School COP instead The SRO subsequently configured School COP to run over the school s local area network and he trained the principal the two assistant principals the two school counselors the School Resource Officer and the receptionist in how to use the software Thus at South Middle School School COP has become the school s operational system for recording and tracking incidents and disciplinary actions The software is used every day at the school The primary benefits of School COP for South Middle School are an increase in the quality and quantity of automated disciplinary information and a reduction in the time required to administer discipline These benefits have been realized because 1 the principal sees School COP as
74. enters discipline data into School COP himself He finds that the software makes it possible to see each student s rap sheet effortlessly making it easy to apply progressive discipline based on a student s previous punishment history The assistant principal shares the information he generates with School COP widely e Eight times a school year he assembles 10 12 students to review a set of graphs and maps asking the students to point out significant patterns in the data help explain any unexpected findings and propose solutions One solution the group proposed for problems in the 6 grade hallway that the assistant principal will consider is to move some 7 and 8 grade classrooms with their more mature students to the 6 grade section of the building e Every quarter the assistant principal leaves one or two packets of graphs and tables in the teacher s lounge for faculty to review He may use information on which teachers make the most referrals to identify ones who may need help disciplining students e He shared a packet of graphs from School COP with the school bus drivers who told him they were pleased to learn that their discipline reports were actually read and tabulated He plans to enter data by individual bus driver to determine whether some drivers may need help coping with disruptive students Far West Middle School serves a city of 80 000 located about five miles from a city of 200 000 The school is one
75. enters her classroom and discovers three windows have been broken A suspect is never identified Incident Based System Student Based System What gets recorded Information about the incident e g where and when it happened Nothing General types of related questions that can be answered at the end of the year The number of vandalism incidents Characteristics about where and when acts of vandalism occurred Nothing Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 72 Scenario 3 A student tells a school administrator that she was sexually harassed but is afraid to identify the students who harassed her Incident Based System Student Based System What gets recorded e Information about the e Nothing until the alleged incident e g where and perpetrators are when it happened identified e Information about the student who was victimized General types of related e questions that can be answered at the end of e the year harassment The number of sexual e harassment incidents Characteristics of students who engage in sexual e Characteristics of students who sexually harassed Characteristics of students that engage in sexual harassment Finally another method of distinguishing incident based and student based systems is to examine a few of the specific data elements that could be captured in these systems
76. epartment officer The school district has recently received a Federal grant that allowed it to purchase a commercial Computer Aided Dispatch CAD system that was installed in October 2003 However the assistant chief of the Security Department reported that the school district will continue using School COP for tracking incidents even after the commercial CAD system is fully operational because even though the department has spent thousands of dollars on the new CAD system the chief still wants to use School COP because of its superior reporting capabilities Benefits To date the Security Department has benefited from using School COP to improve the allocation of security officers to improve communication with the school superintendent and to increase the possibility of obtaining funding to increase the number of security officers Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 45 Patrol Allocation Deployment The school district uses the information School COP provides about incidents to redeploy officers from one patrol area to another based on need Previously school and security officials believed that the vast majority of incidents were taking place at the high school level They thought that the split in the number of high school vs elementary middle school incidents was roughly 70 30 However reports generated by School COP documented empirically that middle schools had the most incidents the actual sp
77. etary receptionist The School COP database was installed on a network server so that all users could share a common database In total the installation took about three hours and occurred without problem Implementation Chronology As shown below only three months elapsed from the time the Security Department decided to investigate the possibility of using School COP to when School COP was being used department wide Late 2002 Security Department chief learns about School COP June 2003 Security Department chief asks consultant to check out School COP July 2003 Chief approves department wide use of School COP September 2003 Staff begin entering new incidents into School COP October 2003 Chief takes School COP reports to school superintendents meeting to request additional officers Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 44 The process of customizing the software s prepackaged set of incident and response types was similarly easy because the consultant used the existing Access application s list of incident types and typical response types The department decided initially not to use School COP s mapping feature primarily because of the large number of schools in the district and therefore the amount of time involved in preparing maps for the schools There was no formal training in how to use the new software Each user learned to use the system on his or her own For example
78. f imposing progressive Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 30 discipline When he needs to punish a student he calls up the student s existing disciplinary record so that he can determine an appropriate punishment to impose this time The assistant principal showed the software to one of the district s two civilian security officers who became very interested in using the software district wide As a result the IT specialist who had helped scan in the school map the assistant principal s computer installed the software on the security officer s desktop computer and installed the School COP database on a shared folder Thus the officer and assistant principal can now see each other s data Sharing School COP Data The assistant principal has shared information generated by School COP with students faculty school bus drivers and parents Students Twice each quarter eight times a school year the assistant principal assembles a group of 10 12 students to spend about 30 minutes reviewing a set of graphs tables and maps that he generates using School COP He decided to share the information with students because his own sons were curious about what he was doing when he practiced using School COP at home He asked them if they thought other kids would be interested in the charts and they said Definitely As a result he personally invited several students to participate in the group
79. fenses the principal will check a student s discipline history in School COP when deciding the action taken for the current incident A four hour training program was conducted for all project staff The training focused on the definition causes effects of bullying the results of student and parent surveys on bullying and the specific components of the school s anti bullying program at the school classroom individual and community level An evening kick off event was held at each school to explain the program to parents and build community wide support for the initiative The event included a dramatization of bullying performed by several students a presentation of the parent and student survey results and a discussion of what is bullying In addition the principal carefully explained the purpose of the new incident reporting system to identify repeat bullies repeat victims and repeat bystanders and assured parents that we will know what s going on because of the incident reporting system Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 25 Washington Adams and Jefferson Incident Reporting Forms Incident Report Name Suspect Supported Suspect Victim Witness Grade Teacher Date 7 Time __ ____ AM PM Incident Type Weapon s Incident Description Incident Location Incident Reported By Form Completed By Action
80. g School COP to Address Crime and Discipline Problems This document describes how to use School COP in conjunction with a formal problem solving approach called SARA Scanning Analysis Response and Assessment The Guide also includes extensive information on how to setup and customize School COP The Guide is available at the School COP Web site e School COP Evaluation Report This report summarizes the National Institute of Justice funded project to enhance and evaluate School COP The evaluation report is available from NIJ or Abt Associates Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites Chapter 2 Overview of School COP What is School COP School COP is a Windows based software application that enables sites to enter map and analyze crimes and school rule violations that occur in and around K 12 schools There are several important points about School COP e Because the package was developed with Federal funding it is available at no cost and can be downloaded from the School COP Web site www schoolcopsoftware com e It was designed to be widely distributed it can be installed on any Windows 95 or later PC it requires no other software to run i e you don t have to purchase a commercial database or other software package and is usable without formal training e School COP organizes information according to the data model that the U S Department of Education s National Center fo
81. ged into the Access application However the Access application included very few reports and no query capability Over time more reports were developed as new requirements surfaced such as statistical reports on school safety issues for the state and reports to individual schools about events on their campuses Staff also began using the software to try to track and assess security officer manpower allocations and to look for trends in offenses At the time School COP was introduced the Access application was producing reports on incidents by Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 42 e call type e school e security officer e responding unit e shift e incidents for which city police assistance was requested and e site summary all incidents for each school The Access application also prepares daily logs that list officers and dispatchers on duty their shifts and their on off duty times The Decision to Use School COP The chief of the Security Department learned of School COP in late 2002 at a National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers conference In addition the assistant chief heard about the software at a 2003 U S Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools conference Despite the ability of the existing Access application to provide some valuable information see above the Security Department had already been interested in preparing more com
82. his arrangement was satisfactory enabling the supervisor to access specific SROs activities by day week or month but the database was abandoned a year later when the volunteer left the department Then the SRO supervisor was reassigned to another division in the police department In early 2003 one of the two current SRO supervisors developed an Excel spreadsheet to enter and track incidents and activities from the SROs logs but the data entry which she did herself was extremely time consuming Furthermore incident narratives could not be entered in the spreadsheet and any analysis of the data was difficult and cumbersome The Midwest school district uses a student information system to track disciplinary actions taken against students SROs however are prohibited by the school district from using the system The Decision to Use School COP During the summer of 2003 the police department hosted a National Association of School Resource Officer NASRO training that one of the two supervising sergeants and four of the SROs attended The NARSO trainer apparently had School COP loaded on his laptop because as part of the training he demonstrated on his laptop how SROs could use School COP for purposes of storing and analyzing data The NASRO people used the sample Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 60 database to demonstrate the program to me the supervisor reported That
83. ict administrators plan to use it to help provide data for purposes of submitting grant proposals A State Readiness to Learn grant requires the district to link students who are at risk for poor academic performance with agencies in the community One criterion for identifying eligible youth for the program is a history of misconduct The district plans to use School COP to secure and provide this information which previously was available only from the inconsistently collected and possibly inaccurate data tracking system each school s assistant principal currently uses The district may also use data from the software program to prepare a grant proposal to fund a drug and alcohol intervention staff person While the school district had planned to use School COP district wide at the start of the 2003 2004 school year over the previous summer the decision was made to purchase a new student information system for the district This system would record information on student s schedules grades attendance and most importantly in terms of their decision regarding School COP disciplinary actions The school district still has not decided whether to use School COP or the new student information system for tracking disciplinary information A final decision will be made by the start of the 2004 2005 school year Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 39 Chapter 6 West School District Security Department
84. idual users can access upload School COP data customize the home page The National Institute of Justice funded development of SchoolantagePoint under a grant to Abt hal E Done fal fai Internet Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 103 The Reports screen see Exhibit A 28 shows the tabular reports and graphs available to the user which again varies according to permissions set by the system administrator For example only one of the five reports shown in Exhibit A 28 the Incident Totals by School and Month aggregate report might be made available to non school officials Exhibit A 28 Illustrative Reports Screen 3 School antage Point Portal Incidents Reports Microsoft Internet Explorer Eile Edit View Favorites Tools Help z r 9 a a Ga Back Forward Stop Refresh Home Search Favorites History Print Edit Address ja http 10 121 210 74 svp main aspx dbID DB_Reports20 Go Se hool N Content Layout Settings Help Vantagepoint HOME POST INCIDENTS ADMIN FUNCTIONS Eee __ mt pia _Search_ _ Refresh ID Name Description Modified Created Incident Report Details for a Selected Incident 2002 11 27 13 01 10 2002 11 27 12 48 13 Incident Summary List for a SchoolList of Incidents for a School 2002 11 27 11 08 30 2002 11 27 10 27 59 Person Involvement Summary Be eels neela a 2002 11 27 09 45 01 2002 11 26 16 49 22 IncidentTotals_BySchoolAndMonth
85. inal charges against the student the SRO updates the School COP record and enters the police case number on the School COP incident form in the Other Agency Case Number field School COP is used every day at South Middle School As the principal had originally envisioned School COP is used primarily to support day to day discipline management and tracking All seven School COP users indicated that the report they most frequently run is a listing of incidents in which a particular student has been involved see Exhibit 3 1 Specifically when a student comes into their office to discuss an incident the administrator can easily display a summary of previous referrals for that student including the circumstances of the incident and what action was taken Exhibit 3 1 Most Frequently Produced School COP Report at South Middle School data are illustrative Report Preview Screen E 4 istory Summary for Covel Robey 42 22 2001 Leaming High School Alcohol Misdemeanor Pemetrator Suspension 12 2002 Leaming High School Alcohol Misdemeanor Perpetrator 44 2002 Leaming High School Threat Intimidation School Rule Pemetrator 6 4 2002 Leaming High School Alcohol Misdemeanor Perpetrator After School Det 4 2 2003 Leaming High School Drug Possession Felony P erpetrator Expulsion 4 242003 Leaming High School Battery Misdemeanor Victim Page 1 of 1 Adjust B 53 gt gt pepon 100 z Print Current Page Print All Pages
86. inally promoted using School COP the SRO advocate to spearhead implementation The key requirement was that his lieutenant be able to use the software program himself 1 to see what my individual SROs are doing and 2 to produce summary reports on all SRO activities Installing the Database It was clear that the SROs would have to do their own data entry submitting paper incident and activity forms to the police department s data entry staff to input was not an option given its current workload Data entry would also need to happen at the schools where the SROs had laptops This left two options 1 Have each SRO enter School COP data into their own database on their laptop and then periodically e mail their database to the SRO advocate The SRO i e the School COP advocate would then use School COP s Merge Utility see the appendix for a description of the Merge Utility to combine the eight individual databases into a single database The single merged database could then be installed on the lieutenant s computer so that he could analyze it with School COP 2 Have all the SROs use School COP on their laptop but have it linked to a common database residing on a police department server The advantage of this approach is that no databases would have to be e mailed as they would in Option 1 However this option presented a technological obstacle because the laptops were outside of the police department s fire
87. ing in text you can select a code from a previously entered list of code values Before you begin to enter Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 3 incidents in School COP you should enter the various codes that will be used during the data entry process to describe incidents persons involved in incidents and activities By entering the various codes described on this page you will improve the quality of your data and the completeness and accuracy of your maps and reports To set up School COP you should e Enter codes that describe characteristics of incidents including o Severity codes which describe the relative seriousness of the incident Be sure to enter severity codes before entering incident codes o Incident codes which describe the specific type of incident that occurred o Status codes which describe the current status of an incident and its resolution o Special circumstances codes which describe incident characteristics of particular interest such as drug related or gang related o Weapons codes which describe the type of weapon if any used in the incident e Enter codes that describe the persons that were involved in incidents including o Person type codes which describe the various types of persons involved in incidents e g students teachers o Grade level codes which indicate the various grade levels at your school s o Action taken codes which indicate
88. ing ten School Resource Officers SROs A 2001 COPS in School grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services COPS Office funded the first five SROs When the grant expired the department picked up their salaries and added five more SROs One SRO is stationed full time at each of the school district s five middle schools and five high schools each SRO is also assigned to on average three elementary schools that feed their particular middle or high school Two sergeants spend nearly full time supervising the SROs one sergeant also supervises a School Safety Officer the other sergeant also supervises the D A R E officers When the SRO program began in 1998 each SRO filled out a daily log of incidents and activities by hand and forwarded it to one of the SRO supervisors However this tracking system was cumbersome for example an SRO who served a middle school and two feeder elementary schools had to complete three different logs each day a process one SRO referred to as ridiculous because of the time it took As a result he said The supervising sergeant used to have to hound us for the logs After more than a year the supervisor was able to get the county s data processing unit to develop a computer database into which the SRO logs could be entered The supervisor arranged for a volunteer to collect the forms from each SRO each morning and then spend 20 to 30 minutes entering them in the database T
89. ion With potentially a large number of different symbol sizes displayed on the map legends for graduated symbol maps typically do not show the value corresponding to all the different symbol sizes School COP map legends show icon size associated with three symbol sizes the maximum middle and minimum values The algorithm for generating the legend sometimes yields three different symbol sizes in the legend other times as is the case with Exhibit A 14 only two different symbol sizes are shown Finally it should be noted that as with graphs maps can be pasted into other documents by clicking the copy button on the screen Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 87 Exhibit A 14 Map of Incidents Meeting Search Criteria School Crime Operations Package BEE Quick Map Incidents mapped Area LHS Building Incident Type Trespassing School Learning High School Learnioyg High School Multi Layer Maps A general mapping screen allows School COP users to create multi layer maps of school incidents The map in Exhibit A 15 shows incidents involving drug possession as one layer incidents involving tobacco as another layer and incidents involving alcohol as another layer The legend in the lower left corner shows the maximum sized icon on the map for each of the layers The idea behind this screen is to present a very simple user interface for building a multi layer map All of the controls for
90. ioned for security and administrative staff at the schools these users may have more limited access to data and reports than the coordinator Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 102 e The Non School Officials role is envisioned for parent groups or staff from other agencies whose access to School COP data is severely restricted e g only certain aggregate reports e The anonymous role is envisioned for the general public in all likelihood sites would disable this role Data Analysis Web School COP data analysis features are accessible under the Incidents menu bar Exhibit A 27 shows the Home Page and contents of the Incident menu bar for a user assigned the role Coordinator The Browse and Search options provide access to incident level details In all likelihood sites would want to restrict this level of detail so for example a user with a non school official role would not have access to either of these options i e when a non school official logged into Web School COP the only command appearing under the Incident menu bar would be Reports Both screens are similar to the analogous screen in the Windows School COP see Exhibits A 7 and A 10 Exhibit A 27 Data Analysis Options for Users with Coordinator Role School Yantage Point Portal Home Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edit view Favorites Tools Help eS 8 a a fE 3
91. ions Package BEIEs Help School Incidents Search Results Search criteria Area LHS Building Incident Type Trespassing School Learning High School Incident 293 School eaming High School he Weapon None x eee 12723700 Area LHS Building x BRED acid Possible Gang Related x eee foozat Location Cafeteria x Reported By Mrs Winger yy ea i400 Incident Type Trespassing x Investigator for Ward mm Entered By fort Ward Severity Misdemeanor x Status Closed x Entry Date 7717700 Other Agency Case Number Garner Smith was seen in the cafeteria Off Ward had twice previously advised Smith to stay out of the building Enter Edit People Involved Boreas Incident Report Graph k lt lt lt gt gt gt AANE acd nen Seve Unde Edit Dewe Find Exit List Summan oe The label Record 13 of 13 in Exhibit A 12 indicates the number of records matching the search criteria and the English language equivalent of the criteria is shown near the top of the screen The navigation buttons lt lt lt lt gt gt gt gt I can be used to view the other incidents meeting the criteria Clicking the Graph button on Exhibit A 12 displays a graph of the incidents meeting the search criteria see Exhibit A 13 A default graph showing the number of incidents by month is displayed but by clicking the Count By drop down the X axis variable can be changed to date year school ye
92. is own purposes he did not need the principal s approval to use School COP Because only one or two such incidents occur each month at the school this represented a very limited use of School COP and a modest time investment by the SRO However during the summer of 2001 the principal considered using School COP to track disciplinary activity in the school Since 1990 the school had been using a computer system to document referrals instances when a teacher or other staff member sends a student to one of the school administrators for possible disciplinary action The school averages about 800 referrals a year The computer system which is one module of the school s student information system was designed primarily as a data entry rather than data analysis system to help the school report disciplinary actions to the state department of education As such its usefulness to school staff was limited For example e Minimal information can be recorded about the incident that led to the disciplinary action Aside from personal information about the student being disciplined the only information about the incident that could be entered are the date of occurrence the Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 15 person reporting the incident limited to 4 characters the disciplinary action taken a 4 character code and brief narrative comments up to 40 characters e The only way to search the di
93. isruptive students Figure 2 Incidents by Location Number of incidents 260 Boys Lockers 1 Shop 1 Commons 4 Girls Lockers 1 Front Parking 0 Gym 1 2 1 Neighborhood Incidents By Location 9 1 02 3 10 2003 Room 6 2 SY Room 8 0 Room 9 0 Ore Yz N yp S NS ae 8S Ne g lt 8 E Y88s 5 N eee t E amp 8 SSON Raa sanceeeetc y 8 SNIS SEX FELIS 8B BEES Sang SoS a eRe E 33E PEN wR Ree ees e238 58E E EEES SE X ES 88988 eeeerre Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 34 The Assistant Principal Keeps Parents Informed about School COP The Far West Middle School assistant principal described the software program to a group of parents who make up an advisory group to the school that meets several times a year The parents agreed that the software could be useful for helping to identify and address misconduct problems The assistant principal and the principal considered making a more formal presentation on School COP to the group including distributing some of the graphs but they decided against it because they do not want to leave parents with the impression that there are rampant problems at the school However d iscussing the software program and its capabilities can demonstrate that school administrators manage discipline data effectively and are fair to the students the assistan
94. l COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 47 Chapter 7 Eastern Police Department Summary The Eastern Police Department which serves a city of 40 000 has eight School Resource Officers assigned to the city s 13 schools A lieutenant supervises the SROs One of the SROs read about School COP while perusing questions and answers that had been posted to an electronic bulletin board on the National Association of School Resource Officers NASRO Web site On the site other SROs had praised School COP The Eastern SRO downloaded School COP from the School COP Web site and experimented for a few weeks with the sample database Toward the end of the 2001 2002 school year the SRO demonstrated School COP to his lieutenant After the SRO successfully pilot tested School COP in his schools at the start of the 2002 2003 school year the lieutenant ordered the other SROs to use School COP The most important reason the lieutenant decided to implement School COP was his belief that School COP would help him sustain the SRO program once grant funding ended While he believed strongly that the SROs provided significant benefits to the schools given the fiscal climate in the city he knew he would have to justify the program especially at the end of the 2004 2005 school year when a Federal grant would be ending To do this he would need to have stats on everything the SROs did The SRO who originally used School COP subsequently cus
95. l COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 36 School COP Benefits Students by Helping to Ensure They Are Punished Fairly According to the Far West Middle School assistant principal By making it possible to apply progressive discipline the program will make sure that administrators are fair in how they punish students in the sense of having tried less severe interventions before using more serious ones The documentation of each student s discipline history makes it possible for assistant principals to provide students with a defensible rationale for the severity of the punishment for their most recent misconduct The software makes it possible to be fairer with students in another respect by imposing consistent punishment from one student to another For example the assistant principal says If I catch a student who has stolen a teacher s calculator I will look at other thefts this year recorded in School COP to see how I responded Lots of parents and kids say That other kid got only a talking to so why did I get a three day suspension Kids see inconsistencies in discipline right away so with School COP I have a defense Being scrupulously fair is particularly important for school administrators he observes because we are judge jury and jailer so we need accurate data Plans to Expand School COP Districtwide Currently only the Far West Middle School s assistant principal and on
96. l COP data customize the home page As shown in Exhibit A 24 the system administrator has access to a full array of editing tools so that place text graphics hyperlinks tables and other objects can be placed on the Home Page Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 100 Exhibits A 25 and A 26 show why the system administrator can edit the Home Page but other users cannot These exhibits illustrate Web School COP s Permission Manager Clicking the Portal Tools menu on the Home Page see Exhibit A 23 provides access to the Permission Manager Exhibit A 25 shows the current permission settings for the main panel on the Home Page for the system administrator Note that Allow is checked for all the different types of permissions Exhibit A 25 System Administrator Permissions for the Main Panel on the Home Page E Permission Manager Web Page Dialog g xj Security Properties for WebPart WP_Html iewer1823 Anonymous gd Coordinator Non School Officials School Officials Administrators Permissions Allow Deny Read E E Create E E Update E E Delete E E Execute E F Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 101 By contrast Exhibit A 26 shows the current permission settings for the Coordinator users with this assigned role can read the main panel on the Home Page i e they can see it but they cannot change it
97. l COP implements mapping an overview of how incidents are geocoded that is how geographic coordinates are associated with an incident location follows additional details on the data entry process of which geocoding is one component are discussed later in the Appendix When new incidents are entered in School COP users indicate where the incident occurred by first selecting the school area and location where the incident occurred Exhibit A 6 shows the incident data entry screen with a new incident that occurred in Room 101 being added The exhibit shows that users need only choose from the pre entered list of schools areas and locations In particular the location drop down list shown in Exhibit A 6 only contains the pre entered locations associated with Learning High School and the area LHS Building Selecting from the lists as opposed to typing in the location enhances data quality by ensuring consistent spelling Once the location is entered and the incident is saved the X and Y coordinates associated with the location are automatically stored in the incident record where they can be used for producing incident maps Exhibit A 6 Geocoding New Incidents School Crime Operations Package ME x Help School Incidents Use this form to enter or edit information about school incidents Click Exit to return to the main menu resena ro ba speck 3 mm dd yy prn Circumstance School Year Location i Reported By E iv
98. l involved in disciplinary proceedings Because of the limitations of the system previously used to record discipline information in particular the 40 character limitation in the narrative comments administrators could only get a complete disciplinary picture by consulting the student s master folder in the main administrative office Administrators also like the more professional looking documentation and reports that School COP produces While School COP is used daily for disciplinary purposes administrators mentioned two other likely future uses for School COP The first involves examining the frequency with which teachers refer incidents to administrators The SRO plans to study this issue in order to see if there are any teachers who because they have made an excessively large number of referrals may need additional assistance or training in discipline management Second the principal plans to use School COP to help assess the effects of establishing three separate houses in the school Some school board members and community residents questioned this decision even though the principal felt it would improve the school s climate and foster a better sense of community In addition to examining changes in academic achievement the principal plans to measure changes in safety and climate by generating School COP reports that show annual trends in the total number of referrals and specific types of referrals Abt Associates Inc Scho
99. l n Content Layout Settings Help Vantagepoint POST INCIDENTS ADMIN FUNCTIONS lt lt Logout HOME i a Summary of Incidents for cmrm Grant MS a 1 1 1999 1 1 2002 Start Date fi afi z 1999 End Date 1 rm dd yyyy rmm dd yyy y i Inc Date Time School incident Type Severity ggtighland ES S Weapon Status 186 12 06 1999 1230 Grant MS Fighting School Rule Violation Closed 179 01 17 2000 930 Grant MS Threat Intimidation School Rule Violation Closed 1178 03 17 2000 1200 Grant MS Alcohol Misdemeanor Closed 1186 12 06 2000 1230 Grant MS Fighting School Rule Violation Closed 1179 01 17 2001 930 Grant MS Threat Intimidation School Rule Violation Gang Related Closed 1178 03 17 2001 1200 Grant MS Alcohol Misdemeanor Closed iE Monday December 2 2002 Done E nternet Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 105 Building Custom Reports Unlike with the Windows version of School COP system administrators can create their own reports with the Web School COP or modify reports that were developed for the demo version Selecting Reports Administration under the Admin Functions menu bar again only accessible to the system administrator displays both the Query Builder and Reports Administration page shown in Exhibit A 30 Exhibit A 30 Query and Reports Builder oft Internet Explorer School A ero Vantagepoint Select Site
100. lar presentations made possible by the software program the lieutenant reports that Now they city officials are asking Where are we going to find the funds to keep the SRO program going rather than wondering Do we want to continue this program School COP has also made it possible to improve dramatically the department s documentation of the SROs activities Before they began using School COP the SROs had in reality not done much by way of documenting their activities beyond preparing the incident reports that they forwarded to the Records Management System Furthermore before they began using School COP the incident reports that were entered into the Records Management System represented a small fraction of the SROs activities While it was theoretically possible to have logged in all SRO activities in the records system that would not have been appropriate because the system was intended only for crimes and suspected criminal activity Furthermore the department did not want to add work to its already overburdened data entry staff From the beginning the lieutenant instructed the SROs to enter everything they do into School COP excluding minor student misconduct such as disrespecting a teacher in which the SROs are typically not involved Furthermore the SROs enter the people involved in the incidents perpetrators suspects and victims This improved documentation of course ultimately helps the department
101. lit was 30 40 30 among the three school types levels However data from School COP also showed that the high schools had more serious crimes than the middle schools primarily due to gang activity The contrasting findings that most of the serious crimes occur at the high schools but that most incidents requiring officer assistance occur at middle schools which are far more numerous than high schools represents two different but equally serious kinds of service requirements that the department is currently considering how best to handle In the meantime the Security Department is already using the data School COP to temporarily redeploy on duty security officers on a daily basis from one patrol area to another For example the old deployment system involved fixed assignments of officers to the four areas now the number of officers assigned to each area can vary throughout the day For example while the typical deployment is to have one officer assigned to each of the four areas that deployment may be changed temporarily during the day to three officers in one area one officer in a second area and no officers in the third and fourth areas Sharing Reports with the School District Superintendent Since the beginning of the 03 04 school year every two weeks the Security Department chief provides the school superintendent with reports generated by School COP that document where and what type of incidents are occurring information the s
102. lway documented by School COP the students suggested staggering the classrooms that is moving some 79 grade classrooms to the 6 grade hallway The current system of homogenously grouping all 6 grade classrooms in the same corridor results in the entire 6 grade with all its energy and immaturity pouring into the same hallway between every class period and before and after recess and lunch Alternatively the group suggested the times the 6 graders go into the hallway for recess and lunch could be staggered so that half of them leave and return five minutes earlier than the second half thereby avoiding having all the 6 graders out in the corridor at the same time Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 32 e Because School COP data on time of day that incidents occur showed there was a problem with 6 grade recess the group suggested giving students who behave appropriately coupons redeemable for candy from the school secretary The assistant principal let a student sit at his computer and create and print the coupons He gave each member of the group a half dozen coupons telling them not use them to reward their friends Members handed out the coupons at recess to well behaved students To participate in the group the assistant principal chose not only students with an analytic bent but also some students who had been in frequent trouble but weren t so squirrelly that they couldn t si
103. m when I was principal at the high school that was designed for business not schools Is it a burden to enter data into School COP Assistant principal No I and the security officer would access the same database Assistant superintendent Will it help with information for the state report Assistant principal Yes The assistant principal gives the superintendent the same packet of graphs and maps from School COP that he shared with the group of students After looking through them she says The November spike in incidents is interesting Then the security officer demonstrates the software s principal features especially its search capabilities and ability to track victims as well as offenders The previous fall the assistant principal had already presented the concept of using the software to the school district s administrative team consisting of the superintendent assistant superintendents security officers and school administrators Assistant superintendent Have you updated the team Assistant principal No Assistant superintendent Do it again and talk about how busy assistant principals can enter data so easily To the security officer Are you entering incidents just for Far West Middle School Security officer Yes but I d like to see it School COP used districtwide even at the elementary level so I can track kids throughout their school
104. ms for example providing increased supervision at hot spots and closing off some areas of school buildings to students He also liked the software s mapping feature Although not the decisive factor the captain could have found money to pay for a commercial product the fact that School COP was free simplified his decision to give the supervisors permission to implement it The police department s information technology department played no role in the decision to use School COP Implementation Process The process of implementing School COP was rapid and simple First the supervisors sent the software to each school s information technology person who installed it on computers that the principals gave to the SROs Then the supervisors customized the software and trained the SROs to use it Customizing School COP The most recent version of School COP has been revised to allow users to enter information about SRO activities and the number of hours they spend on them The software was upgraded in this fashion precisely because as with the Midwest Police Department many agencies and schools reported they wanted to be able to track their SROs many activities that did not involve law enforcement actions Taking advantage of this opportunity the SRO Supervisors customized the software so that SROs can enter data separately for 1 incidents involving student misconduct from criminal behavior to mischief that occur at school
105. n ID and password set Additional login IDs and passwords can be created and users can change the admin login ID password After a valid login ID and password set are entered the School COP main menu is displayed see Exhibit A 1 Exhibit A 1 School COP Main Menu School Crime Operations Package Help Main Menu Select One of the Following Options Enter Edit School Incidents Search Incidents Graphs and Tabular Reports Mapping Administrative Functions oOo Near the end of the School COP Enhancement and Evaluation grant period additional changes were made to School COP under a different non NIJJ funding stream The current version available on the School COP Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 74 The Main Menu is the gateway for entering new incidents performing searches running canned reports and graphs and producing multi layer maps The Administrative Functions button provides access to screens for building the School COP geobase configuring other code tables and performing other administrative functions such as login ID management and backing up data Setup and Customization Before starting to use School COP to enter their own incident data users can customize the package to meet the needs of their school s Specifically School COP allows users to pre enter codes in code tables for attributes related to incidents e g incident type and locati
106. ncident or a law enforcement activity For example An SRO asked whether participating in checking a student s home at the request of the department of youth services to determine whether a student was living in squalor is an activity The answer was yes even if the SRO takes the child into custody because it did not occur on campus After this initial customization one of the supervisors copied the customized School COP database to a master disk and then installed it on each SRO s computer Over the next several days as the SROs began entering data some of them saw the need to include still other incident types and activity categories such as Helped Department of Youth Services The supervisors added some of these suggestions to the incident type and activity type drop down lists According to a supervisor Some SROs initially complained that there wasn t a category for this or that but I told them it is too much for you to keep track of everything yjust lump the incident or activity into the most appropriate existing category The supervisors themselves combined accidents and traffic stops on school grounds as traffic contact rather than develop separate categories in the incident type drop down menu Even though some SROs requested changes in incident and activity types that did not apply to other schools the supervisors had all the SROs install every new menu change on their computers so that all the SROs
107. ng one location for each major section of hallways and one location for each major section of the school grounds e g parking lots and playgrounds Training Once the customization work was completed the SRO planned and conducted a one hour PowerPoint training session focusing primarily on data entry procedures for the other seven SROs and the lieutenant on all of whose personal computers he had installed the software The SRO commented on how the other SROs were happy with all the pull downs since Location names that contain identifying information are masked Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites most of them are not very good typists being able to select choices from pull down menus minimizes the amount of typing required to enter an incident Furthermore even though eight different SROs do data entry consistency has not been much of an issue because using the pre entered codes in the drop down lists helps standardize data entry However a couple of SROs grumbled about the data entry requirement especially since they still had to complete a Record Management System report for each criminal offense The lieutenant admitted I m not terribly computer literate When he does run into a problem he says I call the SRO who advocated School COP if I have questions The lieutenant also relies on a cheat sheet see the box School COP Cheat Sheet Devel
108. ng using it e The 2 250 figure ignores an estimated 1 000 persons who obtained School COP from one of a eight other conferences held from 2001 to 2003 at which School COP CDs were distributed including four NIJ two COPS Office and two Department of Education conferences e An unknown but probably significant number of School COP users obtain the software from other School COP users e g one SRO from a school district attends a COPS In School conference but then gives the CD to all the other SROs in the district For example across the six sites discussed in this report 11 persons attended COPS In Schools conferences in addition staff at the sites also downloaded Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 9 School COP a total of 5 times However there are at least 36 persons using School COP at the six sites Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 10 Part Il Case Studies This section describes implementation and use of School COP at six different sites See the sidebar Methodology for a discussion of how the sites were selected and how data were collected The key topics in each case study are e the process for deciding to use School COP e implementation issues and obstacles and e the benefits the site has realized from using School COP The names of the sites although fictional reflect the sites geographic location and key School COP users
109. nnot access the merged database SROs report that it takes them between 20 30 minutes a day to enter their incidents and activities one said it took him about an hour a week Most enter the data either at the beginning or end of each day One SRO enters the data when I get a moment it could be every day or every other day when I can close the door for a half hour During the first month of School COP use the SROs had collectively entered 347 incidents The pie chart in Exhibit 8 2 describes these incidents by incident type Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 65 Exhibit 8 2 Incidents Entered During First Month of School COP Use Incidents by Incident Type Number of Incidents 347 Incident Date between 9 1 03 and 9 30 03 Drugs 10 Disorderly Conduct 12 Assault 10 Bully ThreatAntimidate 12 Alcohol 1 Familiy Offense 1 Fighting 1 Motor Yehicle Theft 1 Trespassing 1 Mental Hold 1 Found Bike 1 Family Dispute 1 Sex Offenses 1 Runaway 2 Accident 2 Burglary 2 Weapons Possession 2 Family Offense 2 Tobacco 3 Truancy 3 Larceny Theft 9 Vandalism 7 Disruption of School 6 Traffic Contacts 6 CHINS 4 The School Safety Officer Also Uses School COP As a means of adding personnel to the community services division not just avoiding losing personnel the SRO supervisors ask
110. nsiderable vandalism was taking place outside the school building see Exhibit 8 3 As a result the school decided to place cameras outside as well as inside the school Finally by showing how School COP could map where incidents occurred the SRO was able to help the school obtain even more funds for the cameras Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 67 Exhibit 8 3 Map Shown at Meeting with Surveillance Camera Vendor R Ps Number of 1 Pick Incident Type ae i 2 Pick Date and Time Range 4 Click Here to Produce Map F Date 4 1 00 to 4118 2003 All Incidents EB 9 Time g to 2400 Display Other Maps Zoom To lt none gt im 0 lt none gt ba s 3 Pick School and Area lt none gt v 0 School High School Soone y Any smaller icons on map represent Area Within Grounds pa lt none gt hai proportionately smaller numbers of incidents School Individual SROs reported they have already learned useful information from the data One SRO reported three surprises e Thadn t realized that I spend the most time on counseling and mentoring 38 percent of my time compared with law enforcement and teaching That was shocking e Thad expected that Fridays would be the busiest day for incidents but School COP documented that Thursdays were the most active days e Iwas also surprised to discover that the peak time for incidents and for reports of incidents that might h
111. nstalled School COP on a network but want to restrict some users to read only access of School COP data The Viewer also does not allow access to the School COP Administrative Functions menu Installation To install the School COP Viewer simply replace the School COP executable schoolcop exe with the School COP Viewer executable schoolcopviewer exe on each PC where you want the Viewer installed and then modify the School COP shortcut so that the Viewer is run Viewer Features The Viewer features are best explained by contrasting it to analogous features in School COP Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 90 Exhibits A 16 and A 17 show respectively the Main Menus in School COP and the Viewer Note that the Viewer Main Menu does not have the Administrative Functions button Exhibit A 16 School COP Main Menu School Crime Operations Package Help Main Menu Select One of the Following Options Search Incidents Graphs and Tabular Reports Mapping Administrative Functions Exhibit A 17 School COP Viewer Main Menu School Crime Operations Package iewer Select One of the Following Options Search Incidents Graphs and Tabular Reports Mapping Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 91 Exhibits A 18 and A 19 show respectively the Incident Screen in School COP and the Viewer Note that the Add Edit and Delete buttons
112. oes the incident get documented With incident based systems the incident is documented when it is reported to school administrators with student based systems the incident is documented when if ever the alleged perpetrator is identified and taken to administrator s office What type of information is documented Incident based systems record 1 basic facts about the incident e g what happened where did it happen and when did it happen 2 information about who was involved in the incident including perpetrators victims witnesses and suspects and 3 information about what actions were taken against perpetrators Student based systems record information pertaining to a particular student e g when and why was s he referred and what action was taken against the student Importantly in student based systems there is no direct link to other students involved in the incident Another way to think about this is in terms of what corresponding paper forms would look like o A paper incident form is divided into two sections The top section captures basic facts about the incident what happened where did it happen and when did it happen The bottom section captures information about all the different persons involved in the incident i e there is one subsection for each person involved in the incident o A paper student referral form has only one section which captures information about a specific person involved in the incident
113. of discipline referrals Another teacher reported I already do corridor duty but the maps reminded me of the importance of doing it Bus Drivers The assistant principal shared a packet of graphs from School COP with school bus drivers to let them know what happens when they fax him a discipline slip He demonstrated to them how he enters their data into the software program The drivers told him they were pleased to find out that their discipline reports were actually read and tabulated They don t just go into a black hole In addition because one of the graphs showed that there was more student misconduct on the buses than at any other single location in the school see Figure 2 the information was a morale booster because the drivers now know that school administrators are aware of their problem Ironically however the assistant principal has received fewer referrals from the bus drivers since showing them the School COP graphs not because of a reduction in student misbehavior he speculates but because the bus drivers can no longer use the forms simply to vent their frustration without someone taking notice Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 33 Eventually the assistant principal will enter data by individual bus driver to get a sense of whether some drivers have more problems than others and therefore like teachers with many discipline referrals may need help coping with d
114. oject to collect incident information at the three schools and then enable project staff to analyze the collected data In September 2002 the police department analyst gave an overview of School COP ata project steering committee meeting which included representatives from each of the three schools two principals and one counselor The representatives were asked to bring their existing incident information that they collected so that they could compare what they collected to what could be collected and analyzed using School COP The software was also loaded on a laptop so that the representatives could test School COP Based on this presentation the representatives agreed to use School COP in the project and have it installed at their schools The principal from Washington Elementary School in particular felt that having documentation on specific bullying incidents was an important step in first understanding and then solving the problem Another principal also felt that School COP would help in the project but was concerned that staff at her school would not have time to enter the incident data This issue was resolved by deciding to use grant funding to hire a part time data entry clerk Implementation Prior to installing School COP at the elementary schools a committee consisting of the three principals an outside consultant with expertise in bullying a School Resource Officer at the schools and an analyst from the police
115. ol COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 19 Chapter 4 Southwest School District Summary At the Southwest School District a formal problem solving project was implemented at three elementary schools Washington Adams and Jefferson that focused on reducing the incidence of bullying The School District partnered with the local police department and an outside consultant with expertise in bullying An analyst at the local police department had heard of School COP through contacts with the U S Department of Justice s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and believed that School COP could be used in the project to collect incident information at the three schools and then enable project staff to analyze the collected data After showing School COP to the principals at the three schools the principals and the project steering committee members agreed to use School COP Prior to installing School COP at the elementary schools a committee met to discuss how to customize School COP Over the next 1 2 hours the committee went through each of the School COP code tables and decided what codes to delete and what new codes to add The list of incident types in particular was greatly expanded based on a list of 27 behaviors that one of the school principals had compiled from what he had observed at his elementary school The incident code list represents a stark contrast to the default incident code list tha
116. on and for attributes of persons involved in incidents e g how they were involved and what action if any was taken against them Pre defining code tables before entering data enables users to enter information about new incidents faster instead of having to type in information from scratch users simply click on the desired code from a drop down list This also helps ensure consistency in the information entered about each incident and protects against misspelling and typographical errors In all there are 14 School COP code tables Three must be built from scratch schools areas and locations which together constitute the School COP geobase see Geobase Construction below School COP includes values for the other 11 code tables that can be modified to meet local needs Five of the 11 are related to an incident e incident severity which indicates the general seriousness of the incident e g felony misdemeanor school rule violation e incident type which provides a description of what happened e g assault defiance dress code violation e weapon used which indicates which type of weapon involved in the incident e g knife gun e special circumstances which enables users to track specific types of incidents that are not included in the other code tables e g gang related incidents hate crimes and e status which indicates whether the incident is currently under investigation or is closed The other
117. oped for the SRO Supervisor To see all incidents at a particular school e Select Search Incidents on the Main Menu o Select a school from the School drop down o Enter a date range or other criteria if desired o Click Search e On the Incident Screen you can o Click Ix lt gt or gt l to browse through the incidents o Click List Summary to see one line incident summaries o Click Graph to see the incidents by month or type To see all incidents for a particular SRO e Select Graphs and Tabular Reports on the Main Menu e Select the report titled Incident List Summary of Incidents o Inthe Sort By drop down select Investigator o Enter a new date range if desired o Click Show Report School COP or rather the manner in which the Eastern City police department is using it has some limitations The database does not provide a complete picture of school safety at the schools in part because minor student misconduct in which the SROs are not involved is not entered into School COP The schools keep the only complete record of referrals i e instances in which students are sent to the principal s office for violating a school rule or for some other form of improper behavior and some of them are never entered into School COP The complete picture of safety in the schools would require linking the school data system and School COP However the lieutenant reports that even though the softw
118. out 130 000 is a regional center for the medical care banking and credit card industries as well as a major shopping center Ten of the Midwest police department s 200 sworn personnel are School Resource Officers SROs One of the two sergeants who supervise the SROs learned about School COP from attending a National Association of School Resource Officer NASRO training Both supervisors liked the software because it would make it possible to effortlessly keep a running tally of the SROs activities documenting how busy and productive they are They also liked its graphing and reporting capabilities mapping feature and ease of use After quick approval from the community services division lieutenant and captain the process of implementing School COP was rapid and simple Each school s information technology person installed the program on the SROs computers Then the supervisors customized the software including configuring School COP with digital maps of each of the schools The supervisors also spent 20 40 minutes training each officer to use the software Every month the SROs e mail data entered into School COP to the supervisors who then merge the data using School COP s Merge Utility which creates a single database of all the SROs data which in turn can be analyzed with School COP The community services division s main purpose for adopting School COP was to document convincingly how busy and productive the
119. out using School COP Most were concerned that the software program would be another piece of wasted work and were worried it would distract them from their other responsibilities In addition one SRO said entering the data means closing the office door for privacy which prevents students from coming in spontaneously for counseling or to report an incident However he observed our attitude changed once everyone got a couple weeks into it ve never heard a single complaint from another SRO According to an SRO who admitted to not being particularly computer savvy An average guy with average intelligence can figure School COP out and make use of it His only problem was forgetting the supervisor s instructions about how to enter a new location and assign it to a point on the map But I played around a bit and figured it out Another SRO reported that he spent a few hours experimenting with the School COP sample database and like the supervisors found it very helpful because you can t do any damage using it Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 64 SROs Are Not Allowed to Enter Students Names into School COP One of the SRO supervisors gave his PowerPoint presentation on School COP to a high level school district administrator The administrator liked the software but because of concerns about limitations on sharing information about students impose
120. patch center The 60 person Security Department includes a chief assistant chief four field supervisors 45 full time sworn security officers five full time dispatchers and a part time dispatch supervisor and three office support staff For patrol purposes the Security Department divides the school district into four geographic areas of roughly equal geographic size and number of schools The boundaries correspond roughly to those of the city police department s patrol sectors The school district fields five patrol units on the day shift three units on the second shift and two units at night Until recently the Security Department did not move on duty security officers among or within areas that is redeploy them With one exception the Security Department has single officer cruisers a West City police officer and school district security officer patrol together in one of the school district cruisers an illustration of school district police collaboration The Security Department s 45 security officers assist local school administrators in handling criminal and non criminal calls for service However local school administrators call the Security Department only when they need help that their own staff cannot provide The Security Department handles some calls for service by themselves in other cases they will work with other agencies such as the city police department fire department and department of child and family services
121. prehensive reports than this existing system could generate As a result in June 2003 the chief asked the consultant who had already been providing contracted software services to the school district related to the Access application to investigate the feasibility and usefulness of using School COP After comparing the capabilities of School COP with the Access system the consultant reported that School COP was far superior in its ability to collect summarize and report incident related data Furthermore since School COP was free the least expensive solution to the school district s interest in preparing more comprehensive reports was to see how well the new software could meet this objective The consultant recommended and the school district agreed that he install School COP at the Security Department headquarters where staff could compare it directly with the existing Access application A few days after the initial users had become familiar with the software program s capabilities the consultant showed the chief several reports generated by School COP The initial reaction of the chief and the other school district personnel to School COP was very positive The principal reason they liked the software was the comprehensive reporting capabilities it offered that would make it possible to easily and quickly provide the school superintendent with improved security reports In addition it was clear to them that the software provided
122. r Education Statistics Crime Violence and Discipline Reporting Task Force recommends School COP s database includes data related to the incident e g date time type location and to persons involved in the incident e g name grade action taken In other words School COP is an incident based system rather than a student based system see the Appendix Differences Between An Incident Based and Student Based System e Sites can customize School COP for their school s see the box Customizing School COP For example before entering any incident data you can enter all the possible incident types e g trespassing bullying that you want to use Then when you enter a new incident instead of typing in the incident type you just pick the incident type from a drop down list containing all the pre entered incident types School COP comes with default incident types you can use the defaults as is delete some or enter new ones In addition you can define special categories of incidents or persons they especially want to track such as hate crimes gang related incidents or incidents involving special education students Customizing School COP There are 18 fields of information related to the incident and 15 fields of information related to each person involved in the incident In some of these fields e g date and time you just type in the information But in other fields rather than typ
123. r i a ERRE AKARE E E R E 90 Abt Associates Inc Contents i School COP Merge Deseriptlotis coc satssecceete eeoncereases fu daned rsee eee sonaesntnwe enone 94 MSTALVATROIS cnoinladscpage E EA S 94 0 oein IEOS ME EE 94 Web School COP D scripti i nsise nc ea arn e O ea xara E Saa 96 Eare 0 aA EEE S ETT 96 Home Page and Role Based Security seesseseessesesesesrsrseresreresrseresresrerressenressesss 97 Dat PANN SHG os a n E A AER E EE nut sod ERRE 103 Building Custom Reports sssesssssesesesessssesrrsesrssresererestessesrenstsresstesenstenteseesreset 106 Importing School COP Databases lt c cc scsssiessdedsccesdecevenceeteseieuensst lt obeddanescnsussnas 108 Abt Associates Inc Contents ii Part I Introduction Chapter 1 How to Use This Report The School Crime Operations Package School COP is a free software application for entering and analyzing incidents occurring in and around K 12 schools The National Institute of Justice NIJ the research and evaluation arm of the U S Department of Justice funded the development of School COP As on the end of 2003 at least two thousand people primarily School Resource Officers SROs and school administrators were using School COP This report is intended for school administrators SROs and other persons responsible for school safety It examines how six sites used School COP what implementation issues they faced and what benefits they realized from the softw
124. r this reason only the supervisors did the customizing prohibiting the SROs from changing the categories in the drop down menus on their own According to one SRO They told us not to monkey with trying to customize our own programs Instead SROs who wanted to add or change a category in a drop down list reported this to the supervisors who then sent out an e mail instructing all the SROs to make the same change with instructions on how to do so see Exhibit 8 1 The SROs were permitted however to identify on their own initiative the locations on their school maps where they wanted to be able to record incidents and then enter these new locations in School COP Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 63 Exhibit 8 1 Email from SRO Supervisor to all SROs From Sent Friday August 29 2003 4 05 PM To Subject Addition to School Cop We need your help in adding two incidents we want to track Please follow these steps in doing so from the main screen You may want to print this out 1 Select Administrative Functions button 2 Select Incident type button 3 Select Add New 4 Type CHINS with capital letters in Incident Code Box 5 Tab down to Severity box 6 Select Misdemeanor 7 Select Save 8 Again select Add New 9 Type Medical Emergency exactly like did 10 Tab down to Severity 11 Select Other 12 Save Thank you Sgt The SROs were originally skeptical ab
125. rdays during the 2001 2002 school year he entered incident data for just the 6 grade students He has since entered incident data for the 7 and 8 grade students Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 29 The Decision to Use School COP While the school district has a central database run and housed off site the district does not use the database to collect information about student misconduct There is no district wide software package devoted to collecting this information each school s assistant principal uses his or her own system for tracking student discipline problems Some administrators have developed their own spreadsheets one uses a software program provided by a local university and others use hand written 3x5 cards The information each school collects is not centrally housed Before using School COP the assistant principal at Far West Middle School had been using an Excel spreadsheet he created himself to track discipline referrals but the program did not enable him to call up the conduct record and discipline history of a student who needed to be disciplined for a new incident In addition while he had loaded his Excel program onto the computer of the in school suspension secretary each time one of them made changes to the file he or she had to be sure to give the other person the new file This procedure he says was both awkward and subject to error forgetting to trade spre
126. re program at which time the lieutenant would decide whether to order all eight SROs to use it During the summer before the 2002 2003 school year the SRO customized School COP for his three elementary schools by entering the names of the schools the names of common disciplinary actions the schools take and several new incident types including bomb threat false fire alarm physical child abuse traffic complaint and suicide threat The SRO also included several types of activities in the list of incident types including counseling and meetings Over the first two months of the school year the SRO entered roughly 30 incidents about half of which involved criminal activity see Figure 1 Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 50 Figure 1 Incidents by Incident Type During First Two Months of School COP Use Incidents by Incident Type Number of Incidents 32 Incident Date between 9 1 02 and 10 3002 Weapons Possession 9 Suspicious Activity 6 Counseling Incident Outside 6 Larceny Theft 19 Truancy 6 Threat Intimidation 6 Motor Vehicle Theft 3 Sexual Harrassment 3 Fighting 6 Trespassing 3 Vandalism 3 Sexual Assault 3 Custody Issue 3 False Fire Alarm 3 Bullying 3 Disorderly Conduct 6 Battery 6 Counceling Incident Outside 3 In November 2002 the SRO met as planned with his lieutenant
127. rised by the data School COP generated showing how over committed the Security Department was the superintendent initiated discussions with the school board about adding 10 additional officers and gave the chief permission to formally request them in next year s budget West City with a population of 450 000 living in an area of 70 square miles is an ethnically diverse community that is about one third Hispanic one third white one fifth black and one fifth Asian Pacific Islander The city a popular tourist destination includes major suburban shopping centers along several major highways as well as socio economically Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites diverse residential neighborhoods The West City police department has 900 sworn officers and 500 civilian staff The West City School District comprises 90 elementary and secondary schools The school district s annual budget is about 700 000 000 Of the district s 100 000 students between 35 60 percent depending on grade level participate in the Federal Government s free and reduced lunch program The student body like the city is ethnically diverse depending on grade level 20 to 50 percent are Hispanic 15 to 20 percent black 15 to 20 percent white and 8 tol4 percent Asian The West Security Department functions in largely the same manner as a municipal police department with sworn patrol security officers and a 24 hour dis
128. rk folder In this case all users will be able to add edit or delete any incident in the database Instruments for installing School COP on a local or wide area network are on the School COP Web site e Users have either complete access or complete read only access The School COP Viewer also available on the School COP Web site is a modified version of School COP that enables users to view but not add edit or delete incident information Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 6 You can install either the full version of School COP or the School COP Viewer on a PC e U ser specific restrictions to reports and analysis features The Web based version of School COP affords you great flexibility in assigning access rights to specific users and specific reports or analysis features This version also allows authorized persons with a Macintosh or other non Windows computer or who are not part of a school district s computer network to access School COP data Exhibit 2 2 Summary of Optional School COP Utilities Enhancement ___ Key Features and Benefits School COP Enables users to combine several School COP databases into Merge a single database which in turn can be analyzed using School Utility COP Primarily useful for schools and agencies with limited networking capability Available on the School COP Web School COP A modified version of School COP that does not allow the Viewer
129. rosoft Internet Explorer File Edit View Favorites Tools Help gt 9 fF a 2 T Forward Stop Refresh Home Search Favorites History School N Content Layout Settings Help Vantagepoint y Authentication Login admin Password aS al Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 98 What appears after a successful login depends on the access privileges granted by the site s system administrator to the person logging in In Exhibit A 22 the system administrator is logging in the Web page then displayed is shown in Exhibit A 23 Notice some important changes between the Home Page Exhibit A 21 and the Home Page after the system administrator logs in Exhibit A 23 e Additional menu bars Post Incidents Admin Functions and Portal Tools appear on the Page that give the system administrator access to a variety of functions e The User Site and Role in the upper right corner of the screen have been filled in e Three panels on the Page Related Links Technical Assistance and the main panel where Welcome to School Vantagepoint appears have small pencil icons in the upper right corner of the panels which signifies that the panel can now be edited see below Exhibit A 23 Home Page After System Administrator Logs In xy School antage Point Portal Home Microsoft Internet Explorer j6 x Ele Edit View Favorite
130. rsons shown in the exhibits in the Appendix are fictitious Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 77 Exhibit A 4 Assigning a Map to an Area School Crime Operations Package BEE Help Areas Within Schools Select the desired school then use this form to enter or edit areas in the selected school Click Exit to return to the admin menu School Name beaming High School kx x gt Find Record 1of1 Areas in the school shown above AreaName EARTE Description SampleBuilding bmp Pick Map D PROJECTS Mr For hte Chips MDISS ampleBuilding bmp Aiea Map Type pirap Learulng High School K K gt gt Recodio2 Add New Gave Unde Edit Delete Eind Exit Next users can define specific point locations within each area by typing in names of locations and then clicking on the map to specify where the location is This allows users to be as specific as desired in defining locations For example a hallway could be a single location or divided into several locations Exhibit A 5 shows the screen for assigning locations to areas The label Record 13 of 35 indicates that the displayed location i e Room 101 is one of 35 locations in the area LHS Building which is part of the school named Learning High School The cross hairs on the map show where the user clicked the map when assigning the location named Room 101 to a point on the map When the map
131. s Tools Help S lt 9 a a fE 3 BD 3 Back Forward Stop Refresh Home Search Favorites History Mail Print z oo Address fe http 10 121 210 74 svp main aspx dbID dash_Home x ec Content Layout Settings Help User ool District School A Vantagepoint HOME POST INCIDENTS j Related Links gt ig m NI MAPS Program Welcome to SchoolVantagepoint School COP Web Site b COPS Office This new Web site offers exciting new features to users of School COP a widely used free Abt Associates Inc aaa package for entering and analyzing school incident and crime information With SchoolVantagepoint School COP users can make their School COP data available to any Need help i authorized person with a Web browser For example a school district security office that uses School COP to collect district wide information can now make that information accessible to school administrators and other persons with school safety responsibility lt lt Select Site lt lt Logout ADMIN FUNCTIONS PORTAL TOOLS For project support contact Tom Rich School VantagePoint H Project Director The School antagepaint coordinator at the school district can Abt Associates Inc 55 Wheeler St Cambridge M4 02138 Email tom_rich abtassoc com System Requirements This site is best viewed in i Internet Explore 5 0 and higher 4 free version is available here create user acco
132. s what was exciting because it shows right away what you can get out of the software School COP put my Excel program to shame Furthermore she said School COP was a godsend because in moving our computers to the new police department headquarters building I lost my Excel program The SRO supervisor had the NASRO instructor download the software from the School COP Web site onto her computer she then showed it to the other SRO supervisor He a computer buff experimented for a few hours with the sample mock database which he too found to be a very useful starting out point that helps you get the gist of using the program He then prepared a mock up of his own using dummy names and incidents Both supervisors liked the software because its data tracking capability would make it possible to effortlessly keep a running tally of the SROs activities documenting systematically their busy schedules At the same time they liked the software s graphing and reporting capabilities Mapping is a bonus too one of them said Finally they appreciated how easy it was to use the software The computer savvy supervisor then made a presentation on School COP to the community services division lieutenant and captain The administrators were immediately convinced that the SROs should use the program The captain liked the software s ability to track where incidents occur so that SROs could be more proactive in preventing proble
133. scipline records is by student name or number e The only report available from the system that school administrators can view is a discipline history for a particular student In particular since the tracking system is a person based rather than incident based system it could not provide summary information on the incidents that gave rise to the disciplinary events see the appendix Differences Between Person Based and Incident Based Systems In addition staff felt that the system wasn t particularly user friendly primarily because it displayed codes rather than the English equivalent of the codes Both the SRO and the principal felt that School COP could provide much more useful information to school staff involved in disciplinary issues as well as provide staff with an opportunity to analyze incident and disciplinary information With the Superintendent s approval the principal decided to use School COP for disciplinary tracking at the start of the 2001 2002 school year instead of the discipline module of the student information system Implementation Process The SRO was confident that he could oversee school wide implementation of School COP without the assistance of county or school district information technology staff Although he had not had any formal computer training the SRO admitted that I m a tinkerer who enjoys solving problems with computers The principal decided that any staff at the school
134. se School COP Over the 37 conferences from January 2001 through December 2003 the percentage of attendees who indicate yes to this question has ranged between 75 and 92 percent The conference logistics vendor also conducts follow up interviews with a random sample of attendees approximately six months after the conference During the interview attendees are asked whether they are using School COP Out of 452 attendees surveyed 35 percent indicated that they or someone at their school was using School COP The large difference between the percentage who say they will between 75 and 92 percent and actually do use it is not surprising In the end it is common to request software especially free software but never actually use it Applying the 35 percent actual use figure to the COPS In Schools conferences implies that the number of School COP users is roughly 2 250 For three reasons this is a very conservative estimate of the total number of School COP users e The 2 250 figure ignores the more than 4 000 downloads from the School COP web site Further the percentage of persons who download it from the Web site and then actually use the software may be higher than the 35 percent figure for the COPS In Schools conferences Conference attendees go to the conferences because it is a grant requirement not because they want to get School COP By contrast presumably people download School COP because they are seriously consideri
135. six are related to people involved in an incident e person type which indicates whether the person was a student staff teacher non student etc e race which indicates the person s racial background e special characteristics which enables users to track specific types of persons that are not included in the other code tables e g special education students gang members Web site has some features notably a new screen for recording school safety activities that are not depicted in the screen shots below Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 75 e grade which indicates the grade level of the person e involvement which indicates how the person was involved in an incident e g victim perpetrator witness suspect and e action taken which indicates what type of sanction if any was given to the person e g suspension expulsion Code values are entered using screens such as the one shown in Exhibit A 2 which is the status code table screen The Record 1 of 3 label indicates that three status codes are currently defined Exhibit A 2 Status Code Entry Screen School Crime Operations Package BEE Help Status Codes Use this form to enter or edit codes used to describe the status of a school incident Click Exit to return to the administrative menu Status Code pm Status Code Description The incident is being investigated Abt Associates Inc School
136. swer 1 I don t know if I m too late to respond to your question however the School COP program is very good Answer 2 I have it and it s awesome Answer 3 I was just requested to do a daily report I am currently using School COP and I love it The SRO downloaded School COP from the School COP Web site He immediately liked how easy it was to install on his laptop computer and especially how easily and effectively he would be able to customize School COP for his three elementary schools He experimented for a few weeks with the sample database included in the software package and then toward the end of the 2001 2002 school year demonstrated School COP to his lieutenant The lieutenant immediately saw the potential benefits of School COP especially how additional automated information could be maintained in School COP compared to the police department s RMS For example with School COP they could enter information on more reports just criminal reports in the RMS vs criminal reports non criminal reports and SRO activities in School COP and enter more detail on each incident e g the RMS lists the school address as the incident location while School COP could record the precise location in the school building or on the school ground The lieutenant and the SRO agreed that the SRO would pilot test School COP at the beginning of the 2002 2003 school year After a few months of use they would meet again to assess the softwa
137. t Assigned Behavioral Contract Counseling Incident Outside Disciplinary Slip Custody Issue Loss of Recess s False Fire Alarm Referred to DSS Meeting Referred to Juvenile Intake Physical Child Abuse Suicide Threats Attempt Suspicious Activity Traffic Complaint The SRO advocate also entered the names of all 13 schools He then assigned areas to each school and locations to each area see the box School COP Geography The process involved three principal steps e He defined a total of 38 different geographic areas for the schools He defined two areas for all the single story schools the school building and the school grounds and three areas for the two story schools one for each floor of the building and one for the school grounds e He created a map for each of the 38 areas The SRO was able to scan maps from each of the schools crisis plans e He defined 935 locations within the 38 areas about 25 locations per area indicating on each map where each location was Of particular interest is how the SRO defined locations on the school grounds locations within the school buildings were largely obvious corresponding to the different rooms in the buildings For example he defined the following 14 locations for the school grounds of one of his elementary schools Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 53 name Sidewalk name Sidewalk Nature Center name
138. t at the COPS School City enforcement agency Office District Far West Small City 9 3 500 Assistant principal at NIJ School Safety Middle Far West Middle Conference School School West School Large City 95 97 000 Director of School Conference for school District District Security security directors Security Office Department Eastern Small City 13 SRO assigned to one National Association of Police schools School Resource Officers Department Web site Midwest Mid Sized 35 SRO Supervisor National Association of Police City Department School Resource Officers training program So that the reader can easily determine which of the six sites most closely resembles their own Table 2 below shows additional characteristics of the sites The six sites varied in terms of e the extent of School COP implementation in the school district single school in two sites district wide in three sites and a partial district in one site e the types of persons using the software only school administrators in two sites only law enforcement officials in two sites only school district security staff in one site and law enforcement officials and school administrators in one site and e what data are entered in School COP student referrals in three sites incidents involving security staff in one sites and incidents involving SROs in two sites gt Referrals are instances when students are sent to the school administration office for possible
139. t comes with School COP which includes many criminal charges The three schools plan to use School COP to analyze data on bullying adjust their strategies for addressing the problem and assess the outcomes of specific interventions Analysts at the local police department will also compare the incidence of bullying using survey data versus actual reports of bullying However because of delays in implementing School COP at the three schools limited information are currently available on how School COP has benefited the schools Washington Adams and Jefferson Elementary Schools are three of the 40 elementary schools located in a city with population 200 000 in the western part of the U S The three schools have a combined student population of 2 100 In early 2002 the Southwest School District applied for and was awarded a grant to enhance school safety The grant program required school districts to focus on a particular 4 Not their real names Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites safety problem at specific schools Southwest School District decided to focus on bullying not because they could quantify the seriousness of different problems but rather because they sensed that this was at the root of many problems in the school and because they were not sure how to approach and solve the problem In addition the school district s grant proposal focused on the three elementary schools
140. t principal observed The mother of one member of the group of students with which the assistant principal shares School COP data is on the school board The assistant principal once asked the mother if the girl talked about the meetings Not a lot the mother said He told her You can come to a meeting if you like too She has not yet taken him up on his offer Benefits The assistant principal and the interested security officer feel that School COP can provide them with much more useful information than the schools existing data collection approaches permit because the software makes it possible to see each student s rap sheet effortlessly This makes it easy to apply progressive discipline based on a student s previous punishment history In addition before or even while the assistant principal is meeting with or on the phone with a parent I call up the data on the parent s child while we re talking so I can be on solid ground in talking about the student s previous misbehavior and latest punishment I can show and recite the history of specific incidents and can say we ve bent over backwards for the kid This history can get foggy in parents minds too In addition he says Teachers may say I ve done nothing with this kid by way of punishment but I can document with School COP everything I ve done The assistant principal also finds that it is easier for him to sort data
141. t through a meeting One student who regularly got into trouble asked the assistant principal if he could join the group Having some disruptive students in the group probably helps other kids trust this group he says because it s not just goodie two shoes who participate it adds integrity to the group In addition kids from different backgrounds and with different behaviors learn to understand each other The assistant principal has observed from their behavior that the members are not coming to manipulate the system so they can break the rules without getting caught In fact two girls in the group have gotten into much ess trouble than in the past There could be other things that the school is doing with them that helped reduce their misconduct he says but their membership in the group is probably the principal explanation Teachers Every quarter the assistant principal leaves one or two packets of graphs and tables in the teacher s lounge for faculty to look at Some teachers initially felt that big brother was looking over their shoulders because a pie chart documents the number of discipline referrals by classroom see Figure 2 Indeed the assistant principal says he may use this information to identify teachers who need help disciplining students A teacher reported that teachers review the data with some of them teasing each other about how the data show they are responsible for a lot
142. the potential for improving security officer deployment School COP also offered three other attractive features Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 43 e capabilities for preparing graphical reports e the ability to use maps of the various school sites several of which are large and complex to display data about the location of incidents and e the no cost nature of the software the only expense to the district was a few hours of the consultant s time to download and install it For all these reasons the chief and his staff decided in July 2003 to implement School COP department wide Importantly they did not need to discuss the decision with other departments in the school district because there was no significant cost involved The consultant s costs were covered by a recurring annual agreement negotiated separately with the school district Furthermore because the consultant did all the work required to download set up and install School COP the chief did not need permission from the school district s information technology manager who ordinarily needs to get involved in software purchase and installation decisions Implementation Process The process of implementing School COP proceeded very quickly see the box Implementation Chronology Initially the consultant installed School COP on the personal computers of the Security Department assistant chief and the department secr
143. to reassess School COP Based on his two month pilot test the SRO strongly encouraged the lieutenant to require all eight SROs to use the software program Two considerations tilted the lieutenant toward adopting the software First the alternative was to continue to require the SROs to submit time consuming uncoded i e very difficult for the lieutenant to analyze handwritten monthly tallies of their work Second the lieutenant had to reject the idea of using a commercial alternative to School COP because he could not afford the expense However the most important reason the lieutenant decided to implement School COP was his belief that School COP would help him sustain the SRO program once grant funding ended While he believed strongly that the SROs provided significant benefits to the schools given the fiscal climate in the city he knew he would have to justify the program especially at the end of the 2004 2005 school year when the COPS in Schools grant would end To do this he would need to have stats on everything the SROs did The SRO gives special credit to his lieutenant for deciding to implement School COP noting that He is open to new technology in spite of the fact that he s not particularly computer literate Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 51 The Implementation Process With the decision made to have all eight SROs use School COP it fell to the officer who orig
144. tomized the software for the other SROs including defining over 900 separate locations and obtaining over 35 maps on the schools installed the software on all the SROs computers and conducted a formal training sessions for the SROs and the lieutenant The SROs then began entering incident data into a common database to which the lieutenant also has access School COP seems to have achieved the lieutenant s main objective in using the software The lieutenant used information and exhibits generated by School COP to give to the chief to use in a presentation to the school board at the end of the 2002 2003 school year For the presentation the SRO advocate prepared a series of maps and graphs including incidents by school incidents by type and locations of incidents on the school grounds As a result of this and similar presentations made possible by the software program the lieutenant reports that Now they city officials are asking Where are we going to find the funds to keep the SRO program going rather than wondering Do we want to continue this program Eastern City with a population of about 40 000 is an hour s drive from several major cities Located on the edge of a large lake the city is a recreational and tourist attraction The Eastern City school district s 13 schools include nine elementary schools three middle schools and one high school with a combined student population of about 7 000 Abt
145. tudies e seseseseseseeeresecsesesorcrcsseoeoesereseroeoeooresesorocoesesesecororeesesesorororsesererorereesese 11 Chapter 3 South Middle School sesssesseeeseesssessseessesssesseeessesssesseesseesesessssssesseeeseessse 14 Prostam Ore e Se ea aa aaae a aea aa oaar r ara ew otuasgbadaata meareae nen 15 The Decisi n to Use School COP lsrls cescuisnterhaovdstbstandnieabebaladiaresoniastt knits 15 Implementation PEOCESS siti nerea inen ae ea aa e aa rera reee o E ONE EEEE 16 Benefitsiessen ea E a a ear e eea an rat 19 Chapter 4 Southwest School District esessesseesssessseesseessessseeseesseeseessrssseeseeeseesssess 20 Decision to Use School COP sseessseeeesseeeeseereesserserseseeesesereseeeessrsseeseeseesessseseesseses 21 Hnplementatioi onee e EE E P EEEE S 22 BCH TIES errno e E E E EE E E gies E aceon 27 Chapter 5 Far West Middle School esssseeseessseseeseserseseeeseseresrssrentenresresressrerenressesee 28 AOKO EAE EAE E E E ES 29 The Decision t Use School COP i sc iucisics csinarsasmadicbsesiccades aa a 30 Implementation Process Siae orn i a aE a A saan 30 Sharing School COP Data ora ieren eaaa A a aaa E E E EE 31 PO TVS TUS a5 sos a a e a E a a a E E sares 35 Chapter 6 West School District Security Department esseeseesseseereeresrrsresrrsrerressesee 40 Program Oribi eoit birse hatnntedtuasanczancanrak ya dacnetedsdien aannatiadetuevaraeetancannerteansente 42 The Decision t Use School COP nietis aa an
146. unts to control access to SchoolVantagepoint specify which reports and information individual users can access upload School COP data customize the home page a f joe TT internet The National Institute of Justice funded development of SchoolVantagePoint under a grant to Abt Associates Inc Software Web art design and other technical work by Alfa xP Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 99 Clicking the main panel s pencil icon displays a text editing screen see Exhibit A 24 that can be used to change the content of the main panel Exhibit A 24 Edit for Changing the Content of the Home Page ai i Bjo a a Normal JA B T u a m Welcome to SchoolVantagepoint This new Web site offers exciting new features to users of School COP a widely used free software package for entering and analyzing school incident and crime information With SchoolVantagepoint School COP users can make their School COP data available to any authorized person with a Web browser For example a school district security office that uses School COP to collect district wide information can now make that information accessible to school administrators and other persons with school safety responsibility The SchoolVantagepoint coordinator at the school district can create user accounts to control access to SchoolVantagepoint specify which reports and information individual users can access upload Schoo
147. uperintendent never received before the School COP made it available The typical reports provided are incidents by school and incidents by severity i e felony misdemeanor and school rule infractions The superintendent was surprised at the incident volume documented by School COP reports that the Security Department was handling After seeing how over committed the Security Department was the superintendent initiated discussions with the school board about the possibility of adding ten more officers To support this request the chief took several School COP reports that showed incidents by location time of day and shift to a meeting of the school board to request additional officers After the meeting the superintendent gave the chief permission to formally request additional officers in next year s budget request Overall when asked what they like most about School COP the West Security Department said Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 46 e itis easy to use e its flexibility in the type of information it can provide e its ability to generate reports that present this information in a clear and easily understood manner and e it is inexpensive to obtain and install The chief summed up his experience with the new software by saying that Any school district could use School COP to get the statistics it needs to better manage its security department Abt Associates Inc Schoo
148. ut an hour showing users how the software worked as well as re emphasizing how the software would benefit them in dealing with behavior problems at the school Later in December a school district information technology specialist networked the two copies of School COP at the Washington site so that the principal and assistant principal could share a common database In conjunction with School COP implementation new incident reporting procedures were rolled out at each of the schools Rollout consisted of four major steps The school principal notified school staff that a key element of the school s anti bullying program was complete and accurate reporting of instances of bullying The project manager trained school staff in the new reporting procedures At the three schools incident reporting forms where bundled into the form of tear off pads of paper see the box All adult staff members were given a pad of incident reports One teacher affixed the pad right next to the door of her classroom we wanted the kids to know that we are serious about reporting bullying When an incident occurred the staff member witnessing the incident completes the form except for the Action Taken section and submits the form to the principal who records the actions taken on the form The form is then entered into School COP Since one of the program objectives is to have progressive discipline i e increasing consequences for subsequent of
149. wall a special hole in the firewall would have to be implemented to enable this option to work Because the SRO i e the School COP advocate knew he did not want to be responsible for periodically merging eight School COP databases Option 1 he elected to go with the second option He made this choice even though he knew there would be a significant delay because he had to ask the city s overburdened MIS department to implement the hole in the firewall In the end the process of requesting and implementing the firewall hole took 10 months As a result School COP was not ready for use by all the SROs until the start of the 2003 2004 school year Customizing School COP Although already customized for his three elementary schools in preparation for rollout of School COP to the other seven SROs the SRO advocate had to customize the software for Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 52 them After he had reviewed the Incident and Action Taken codes with his lieutenant the SRO advocate added five action taken codes and nine incident type codes see the box Changes the SRO Made in Customizing School COP Changes the SRO Made in Customizing School COP After reviewing with his lieutenant the codes already programmed into School COP the SRO added nine incident type codes and five action taken codes Incident Types Codes Added Action Taken Codes Added Bomb Threa
150. was created the previous month Exhibit A 20 School COP Merge School COP Merge 18 x Help Merge School COP Databases 1 Pick the School COP databases you want to merge Add database to list Remove database from list 2 Pick a drive folder and name for the new merged School COP database 2aPickadive 5 c05 x 2b Pick a folderon SC the selected dive Program Files 2c Pick a name MetgedD atabaseOn110603 Your selected drive folder and 5 ram Files School COP MergedD atabaseOn1 10603 mdb_ name for the new merged School Sidi ee Ae ee Beet 2 Do Merge Exit or El and Run School COP or Exit and Run School COP with oe with Merged Database a Different Database Abt Associates Inc School COP Implementation and Benefits in Six Sites 95 Web School COP Description This section provides an overview of Web School COP A copy of this version of School COP can be obtained from the School COP project director Installation Web School COP was developed using the Microsoft NET platform As such it must be installed on a Web server that includes e Windows 2000 Server e SQL Server 2000 e NET Framework Version 1 1 Users who access Web School COP must have Internet Explorer Version 5 or more recent The application and database are packaged into a single zip file The zip file contains e Web School COP source code e The compiled Web application e Scripts for creating the database Copy the

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