The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to examine the perceptions of school leaders, school division leaders, and non-SRO model employees regarding the transition from a school safety model with School Resource Officers (SROs) to a model with non-SRO (NSRO) employees in one urban school division in Virginia. The researcher sought to answer one research question: What are school leaders' and non-School Resource Officer employees' perceptions of the transition from a school safety model with School Resource Officers to a model with non-SRO employees? The researcher used interviews, an NSRO observation, and the content analysis of school division documents to learn about the school leaders', school division leaders', and NSRO employees' perceptions of the transition to the new school safety model. The study sample included two school leaders, six school division leaders, and three NSRO employees of the school division. The six findings from the study revealed: (a) challenges related to the process of the transition to the new school safety model, (b) challenges with communication and response time with emergency services, (c) the roles of NSROs are inconsistent, (d) similarities between SROs and NSROs, (e) school and school division leaders reported common contributing factors of the transition to the new school safety model, and (f) school leaders indicated concerns regarding a lack of SROs, whereas most school division leaders did not report being concerned about a lack of SROs. This study also proposed implications for school divisions and schools that may consider changing their school safety model. / Doctor of Education / The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions of principals, school division central office employees, the school division superintendent, and non-School Resource Officer (NSRO) employees regarding the transition from a school safety model that had School Resource Officers (SRO) to a new school safety model with NSROs. The researcher interviewed two principals, five central office employees, the school division superintendent, and three NSRO employees to answer the study's research question: What are school leaders' and non-School Resource Officer employees' perceptions of the transition from a school safety model with School Resource Officers to a model with non-SRO employees? The researcher also observed one NSRO and reviewed publicly available documents related to the school division's transition to the new school safety model. This study had six findings: (a) challenges with the process of the transition to the new school safety model, (b) challenges with communication and response time with the police and fire departments, (c) inconsistency with the roles of NSROs, (d) similarities between SROs and NSROs, (e) common reports of contributing factors of the transition to the new school safety model between school and school division leaders, and (f) school leaders reported concerns regarding a lack of SROs, but most school division leaders did not report being concerned about a lack of SROs. This study also included implications for school divisions and schools that may consider changing their school safety model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115329 |
| Date | 05 June 2023 |
| Creators | Heltz, Stacey Lee |
| Contributors | Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Cash, Carol S., Brinkmann, Jodie Lynn, Price, Ted S., White, Tinkhani Ushe |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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