Prevention Through Information (PTI): Addressing Crime and Violence with Data | Virginia Department of Education, Office of Student Services, Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program in collaboration with the Virginia Commonwealth University Center for School-Community Collaboration
Program Description
The Virginia Department of Education is the recipient of a three-year competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. The intent of the project is to (1) build a discipline, crime, and violence (DCV) decision support system and (2) develop and deliver training and related resources that support meaningful analysis and use of data for decision-making in prevention program management at the state, school division, school, and community levels.Virginia Standard(s) Addressed
Planning & Assessment (ISLLC standard 3) and Safety & Organizational Management for Learning (ISLLC standards 2 & 3)Program Goals and Objectives
By the end of this three-year project, state and local school division leaders, principals, school resource officers, and school safety teams will have the ability to manipulate, analyze, and use discipline, crime, and violence data in user-friendly formats that support prevention decision making.Program Format
Strategies will include the provision of a series of regional workshops across the Commonwealth based on an interactive lecture format with instructional materials to be made available that include a "Best Practices" guide, workshop training curriculum for school personnel responsible for DCV data, a curriculum on data use for school division-level and school-level prevention/school safety teams, and an online tutorial for use by school personnel involved with the collection/use of DCV data.Target Audience
The target audience includes school superintendents and assistant superintendents, administrators at the division level, including directors of student services and coordinators of school discipline, school principals and assistant principals, and those division and school staff members working with data collection and analysis.Self-Selection and/or Identification Through School Division
Yes/yes.Duration of Program
- For the data collection process, eight regional workshops will be conducted for year two (2005-06) of the grant and eight in year three (2006-07).
- For the data use process, 16 regional workshops will be conducted in year two and 16 in year three.
- A total of 24 workshops will be conducted in years two and three of the grant.
Outcomes Measured
- Pre- and post-measures of user/trainer knowledge, skills, proficiencies; user/trainee feedback (short-term);
- Assessment of prevalence/level/nature of data use by school divisions, school prevention teams, and other stakeholders (intermediate);
- Comparison of baseline and post-project program-specific performance measures, including: the proportion of local school divisions and Governor's fund recipients that are using data related to youth drug and violence to manage youth drug, alcohol, and violence prevention programs in specified ways; the proportion of local school divisions and Governor's program fund recipients that have received training about collecting, analyzing and using data to manage and improve drug and violence prevention programs; and
- The proportion of local school divisions and governor's-program fund recipients that submit complete responses to data collections (long-term)
Program Evaluation
The project outcome evaluation will be directly keyed to performance measures for assessing the effectiveness of the Grants to States to Improve Management on Drug and Violence Prevention Programs. Virginia has collected data needed for the calculation of baselines for each of these performance measures and will be reporting progress in annual reports.Contact Information
Arlene D. Cundiff
Coordinator, Safe & Drug-Free Schools Program
Virginia Department of Education
P.O. Box 2120
Richmond, VA 23218
804-225-2871 (phone)
804-786-9769 (fax)
Arlene.Cundiff@doe.Virginia.gov