Training School Resource Officers to Improve School Climate and Student Safety Outcomes, Arizona, 2015-2017

This study is an experimental investigation of the effectiveness of integrating School Resource Officers (SROs) into multi-disciplinary teams in reducing risk behaviors in students, specifically the average number of disciplinary incidents over the course of three years (2015-2017). The authors focus on the following research questions: Do schools with SROs demonstrate significantly greater declines in student disciplinary incidents than schools with no SROs?; Do schools with SROs who receive the enhanced training (intervention) show greater declines in student disciplinary incidents than schools whose SROs receive only the standard training?; Do the answers to questions 1-2 vary by sub-populations in the schools such as students from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds, gender, and socioeconomic status?;