State Report on the Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act: U.S. States and Other Jurisdictions, 2019-20 School Year

N

97

Department of Education (ED)

EDESE16A0002

Weapons; Educational Legislation; Expulsion; School Safety; State Legislation; Public Schools; Federal Legislation; Elementary Secondary Education; State Regulation; School Districts; Compliance (Legal); Elementary School Students; Middle School Students; High School Students; Nontraditional Education; Educational Environment; Equal Education; Students with Disabilities

Gun Free Schools Act 1994; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

The federal Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) enacted in1994 requires U.S. public school systems to report any incident of a student bringing a firearm to school or being in possession of a firearm on school property, the law applies to all states and jurisdictions funded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Under federal law, states must also enact their own laws that require local education agencies(LEAs) to expel students for firearm offenses for a period of no less than 1 year. State education agencies (SEAs) must submit data to the secretary of education on an annual basis, reporting the number of students who were expelled for firearm offenses under the law during the 12-monthreporting period. The report describes the GFSA review process and results and includes a summary of how the quality of data submissions improved as the result of the data review and feedback process with states. The report also summarizes compliance with GFSA reporting mandates and data on firearm incidents for SY 2019-20 and includes detail about the number of incidents reported by student grade level, weapon type, and disciplinary action resulting from violations of the law. The report also presents comparisons to incident counts and rates from prior school years to explore changes in incident rates across time. However, it is important to note that data for SY 2019-20 are not comparable to prior schoolyears of reporting, because of widespread school closures that occurred nationally beginning in March of 2020, which were prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. These school closures had the effect of truncating the reporting timeline, because students were not present on campus for in-person instruction for approximately a quarter of the school year. [For the "State Report on the Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act: U.S. States and Other Jurisdictions, 2018-19 School Year, see ED613103.]

ERIC

2023

ED628880