An examination of the impact of safe school funding on the incidences of violent behaviors in the school environment of a rural and urban school district

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of additional revenues for safe school programs and services on the incidences of violent behaviors in the educational environment of a rural and urban school retrieving data from the fourth and final calculation of the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) for the 2001 to 2002, 2002 to 2003, 2003 to 2004, school years through the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE). The data for the independent variables were abstracted from the Division of K-12 Public Schools. The dependent variable and primary unit of analysis in the study were the mean revenues per pupil for each of the two school districts under examination. The variables examined were the district crime rates for various categories of offense (personal property; harassment; alcohol; tobacco and other drugs; fighting; disorderly conduct; and weapons). This study used descriptive statistics to determine the impact of additional monies on two south Florida school districts in an urban and rural school district. Comparisons were made to determine the effectiveness of state funding to combat violent behaviors in these schools. From this analysis, it was concluded that while the report of specific violent activities decreased; others increased based on the funding received; while still, others had no appreciable difference. An additional finding was that money from the FEFP did not appear to cure the problem of school violence and more attention should be placed on creating strategies and building community support systems for support of schools, parents and students.


INTRODUCTION
School officials have long used Zero Tolerance policies, which have pre-determined disciplinary consequences for students who commit specific offenses (notwith-standing individual circumstances), to counter the proliferation of drugs and illegal weapons which have become a part of school culture (Underwood and Verstegen 1990). In 1990, the United States Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act which made it "unlawful for any individual *Corresponding author. E-mail: elizabeth.davenport@famu.edu Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is in a school zone" (18 U.S.C. §922(q)(1)(A)). Two years after the implementationof the statute, theconstitutionality of the law ischallenged in U. S. v. Lopez (1995) in which the Supreme Court found the Act to be beyond the scope of authorityof Congress under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. In view of the Lopez decision, in 1994 Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act, which authorized any school district receiving Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) dollars to establish a policy, which called for a mandatory oneyear expulsion for any student carrying a firearm on school property (20 U.S.C. § 8921). Legal scholars have often noted that one sanction does not fit all violation policies creating a criminal justice system, which provides little or no constitutional protection for all, regardless of the nature of the offense.
However, these same policies have historically demonstrated a disparate impact upon minority children who have been disproportionately suspended or expelled from their individual learning communities (Stover, 2000). Nevertheless, over the last decade the vast majority of states and their governing authorities have embraced Zero Tolerance policies for their schools in an effort to provide a secure and controlled learning environment for its children (Stover, 2000;Russo, 2001). To address the problem of school violence, extra resources have been allocated from Florida to school districts to support programs aimed at decreasing incidences and the presence of school violence.
Extra costs for educational programs were historically related to legitimate differences based on regional characteristics of school districts, type of program in which a student enrolled, or characteristics of student populations such as the learning disabled, students with English as a second language, and the poor (Berne and Stiefel, 1999;Addonizio 2003).
Florida established the Safe School Program aimed at providing funds to primarily large urban districts to combat the problem of school violence. Authorized initially by the Florida Safe Schools Act in 1986, the Florida legislature appropriates an annual amount for distribution to all 67 school districts. Each district is guaranteed a minimum of $30,000.00, from the residual appropriation, 67% is allocated to each based on its latest Florida Crime Index, provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE); and 33% is allocated to each district based on each its share of the state's total unweighted student enrollment. More specifically, the program is established to support activities for students that include: 1. After school programs for middle school students, 2. Improvement to enhance the learning environment which includes the implementation of conflict resolution, 3. Alternative school programs for adjudicated youth, and 4. Other programs and services designed to make the schools safe places to learn (Florida Department of Education, 2003).
Over the years, it has been assumed that money can lessen the incidents of violent behaviors in school environments. The State of Florida allocates safe school dollars to all the 67 school districts to support safe school programs. Florida has provided resources to its learning communities to support the development of preventive strategies and interventions to counteract the swell in school hostility. Through the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP), the Florida Legislature allocates Safe School dollars to the 67 school districts to create and maintain safe school environments. However, there has been little discussion or research regarding the impact of the distribution of school resources for students across the State of Florida violent behaviors in schools. Therefore, this study examines the impact of additional revenues for safe school programs and services on the incidences of campus violent and criminal behaviors in the two district settings: rural and urban.

The State Florida
The Florida Department of Education releases the School Environment Safety Incident Report (SESIR) that assessed "school safety" in the State of Florida. The data on school and violent behaviors contains information on 21 incidents of violent acts, and behaviors, disruptions and discipline. The areas focused in the SESIR included:  (SESIR, 2004). With regard to actual attacks, 11,746 students were victims of battery in 2000 to 2001 compared to 10,305 in 200210,305 in to 200310,305 in school year (SESIR, 2004. In 2001 to 2002, 11,121 students were victims of battery (SESIR, 2004). In terms of property damage, SESIR (2004) reported that vandalism (4,848 in 2000 to 2001) and Larceny/theft (4,797 in 2003Larceny/theft (4,797 in to 2004) occurred more often (SESIR, 2004). Finally, weapons possession is highest in 2000 to 2001 where only 3,596 students incidents were reported compared to 3,360 students incident reported (SESIR, 2004). Lastly, in 2001 under Section 1006.07(6) of the Florida Statutes or Safe Passage Act, required all 67 school districts to annually make a self-assessment of their safety and security best practices, operations. The self-assessments from the 67 districts are submitted to the Department of Education, where the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) determine whe-ther or not the districts met each best practice. The school districts that were unable to accomplish safety and security goals would offer strategies and actions to meet the best safety and security practices (OPPAGA, 2004).
The OPPAGA have the responsibility of developing and improving the safety and security best practices assessment instrument. The 29 safety and security best practices involved seven program goal areas which included the following: In a recent report released by OPPAGA (2004), the report revealed the following: 1. Ninety (90) percent of overall districts reported were in compliance of the overall best practices goals; 2. Twenty-nine (29) percent of the districts were not successful in providing the appropriate safety and security equipment to protect property and official records; 3. Twenty (20)percent of the districts were not successful in meeting best practices for safety and security programs; 4. Twenty (20) percent of districts reported not developing better emergency response; and 5. Eighteen (18) percent of districts reported an inappropriate system in place to minimize the risk of students with suicidal behaviors or tendencies.

Safe School Data: Florida
The total of school disciplinary and violent incidence is Combination includes schools combining elementary, middle, or high groupings or overlap grade levels, e.g., K-6, 6-12, or K-12. Please note that schools report SESIR incidents by incidents, not by individual student 2004).

Conceptual framework
This study examines the districts' violent behaviors within schools as it relates to the infusion of resources and the increase or decrease of violent behaviors on-campus. Figure 1 below illustrates the Conceptual Framework by displaying the sequence of activities. The issue to be answered is whether Safe School Program Resources have an impact on violent behaviors on campus.

Research questions and hypotheses
This The research hypotheses are: 1. HO 1 : There is a positive relationship between the implementation of strategies and the incidences of violent behaviors in a rural and urban school district; 2. HO 2 : There is a significant difference between incidences of violent behaviors in a rural area and urban school district; and 3. HO 3 : The allocation (decreases and increases) of monies to a rural and urban school district results in different effects on the school environment.

Research design
This study is Ex Post Facto study utilizing information from the Florida Department of Education are their website. Therefore, the researcher analyzed external data from the agency to draw conclusions, trends and patterns. These external documents were indicators of the agency's fiscal support of Safe School programs, as well as their monitoring mechanisms. The current project utilizes an analysis of district on-campus violent and criminal behavior rates and Safe School Program funding, comparing an urban and a rural district. It examined the district's violent and criminal behavioral rates as they relate to financial resources.

Random sampling
The theoretical framework of random sampling as a precursor to statistical analysis is as follows. The population is the group of interest to the researcher and is the group to which the results of the study intend to be generalized. It is from this target population that the sample is drawn. The aim of random sampling is to create a sample, which represents the population from which it is drawn. In this study the population is defined as the 67 counties that comprise the State of Florida. The desired sample is two counties. The 67 counties were divided into urban and rural counties as per the definitions provided by the US Census Bureau. Following the stratification into urban and rural counties, Miami-Dade County (urban) and Glades County (rural) were randomly selected for analysis.

Statistical analysis
This study employed descriptive statistics to compare and contrast the difference in funding and violent behaviors between two county school districts, Miami-Dade County (urban) and Glades County The information derived from the data is useful in understanding FLDOE's Safe Schools Programs in the districts under investigation, as well as the agency's perspective of the programs' overall effectiveness in Miami-Dade and Glades counties. Since the information derived from were already classified and summarized by FLDOE, it is evaluated by the researcher to discover trends and patterns between the disbursement of monies and the decrease or increase in violent behaviors in the districts under consideration to draw conclusions about the program's overall effectiveness. Of critical importance were the trends in funding allocation and violent behaviors from the 2001 to 2002 academic year to the 2003 to 2004 academic year. In order to mitigate the large discrepancy in populations between the two districts, changes were reported in terms of percent increase or decrease from the first year in question to the third.

Reliability and validity
Reliability refers towhether a particular technique applied repeatedly to the same object will yield the same or similar outcomes each time (Salkind, 2001). Researchers generally would prefer a measurement instrument to have a reliability of .80% or above, which would give some assurance of acceptable stability. Validity refers to whether an empirical measurement reflects what it is intended to measure.In reviewing the self-survey evaluation, there is no mention of how reliable and valid the instrument is in gathering information. This research uses surveys and reports as the foundational data of this research. Surveys can be useful in understanding the broad picture under study, efficient in the collection of data, and in some instances reveal accurate results (Salkind, 2001). However, to extrapolate or interpret information from a self-survey evaluation report without factoring in the effect of interviewer bias would lessen the meaning of the information gathered.

FINDINGS
The analysis of the data is presented in this section. The

Hypothesis results
The research question explored in this study was what is the impact of the allocation of additional revenues from the Safe School Programs on violent and criminal behaviors in schools? The findings concerning each hypothesis are: HO 1: There is a positive relationship between the implementation of strategies and the incidences of violent behaviors in a rural and urban school district.

The Efficiency and Effectiveness and Safety Programs and Curricula sections of the self-assessment of the School Safety and Security Best Practices with Their Assorted Indicatorsrevealed that Miami-Dade County
School district met the criteria for successful implementation and operation of programs aimed at promoting safe school environments through substance abuse, antiviolence and social programs. Furthermore, the results from the Miami-Dade County school districts suggested an overall increase in total incidents; however, there were no supporting documents, which described these programs or their strategies or interventions.According to the Efficiency and Effectiveness and Safety Programs and Curricula sections of the self assessment of the School Safety and Security Best Practices With Their Assorted Indicators for the Glades County school district, there were no procedures in place to assess performance of programs in terms of efficiency and cost, nor did the school district promote preventative educational programs important in improving school culture and climate. In addition, the school district did not have the educational components in place to teach each grade level violence prevention, conflict resolution, and decision-making skills. The results from the Glades County school district revealed that many of the incident categories experienced a significant increase in percentage changes when funding is decreased.

HO 2 : There is a significant difference between incidences of violent behaviors in a rural area and urban school district.
A series of paired samples t-tests were utilized to Malone Jr et al. 107 compare groups for significant differences. In this instance, county funding is paired by year, county paired percent change in offenses and county as well as year paired offences in each year of analysis. Furthermore, the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to identify if a significant relationship existed between variables. For this study, this correlation coefficient examined offenses committed in (a)  The Pearson correlation coefficient calculations yielded two statistically significant results. When the offences committed in the 2001 to 2002 academic year were correlated at the county level, a .818 correlation is found to exist between Miami-Dade and Glades counties (p = .013). This is statistically significant at the .05 level. Furthermore, when the offences committed in the 2003 to 2004 academic year were correlated at the county level, a .883 correlation is found to exist between Miami-Dade and Glades counties (p = .004). This is statistically significant at the .01 level.

HO 3 : The allocation (decreases and increases) of monies to a rural and urban school district results in different effects on the school environment.
A z test for difference in proportion is used to address HO 3 . The z test formula is the following where p 2 is the proportion of behaviors after the resource reduction and p 1 is the proportion before the change. The student population, before and after the resource reduction is denoted by n 1 and n 2 , respectively: p 2 -p 1 Z = √P (1-P) (1/n 1 + 1/n 2 ).
The results of the analysis of data illustrated that four out of the nine categories (property, harassment, other nonviolent incidents and disorderly) conduct were significant. Total incidents decrease; however, it is not significant. A significant decrease in property crimes is observed after the resource reduction (p = .05). Harassment decreased and is significant at p < .001. Other non-violent incidents increased and are significant at p < .001. Reported disorderly conduct is significantly less after the resource reduction (p = .05). The results from Glades County revealed that total incidents increased and are significant at p <.01. Harassment incidents increased and are significant at p < .02. There is a significant decrease in fighting incidents (p = .04). Weapons crimes increased and is significant at p= .02.Total incidents and resources decreased in Miami-Dade County, while total incidents in Glades County increased and resources decreased. A possibleexplanation may be found in theanalysis of HO 1 , which indicated that programmatic strategies in the Miami-Dade County school district could have mitigated the kind of increases in the incidences of violent behaviors that were seen in Glades County. The troubled areas for Miami-Dade County school district appeared to be property, harassment, other nonviolent and disorderly conduct. Glades County district troubled areas appear to be harassment, fighting and weapons Table 3 is a comparison of percent change in funding and incidents.

Miami-Dade County total incidents and funding
The

Miami-Dade County
As previously mentioned, Miami-Dade County has the largest population of students out of the 67 school districts. Therefore, one would assume that there would be more overall incidences in the Miami-Dade County system than in Glades. However, it is worth noting a few ofthe most glaring illustrations. First, total incidences were 2.5% for Miami-Dade County, which appears to be relatively low for a district with the largest number of students in the state. Yet, when separating out violent behaviors into categories, there appears to be an issue in the areas of disorderly conduct (15.1 %), non-violent incidences (26% increase), and weapons possession (41.5% increase). If funding is the only factors affecting the increasing or decreasing, then policymakers would suggest that school funding in these areas should increase in order to bring the increased percentage rates into a more acceptable range within the goals and objectives of the school district and the state mandate. Although, the revenue change for all the categories is the same, some incidences experienced a relatively small or no change. For example, violent behaviors against persons experienced a 0.0% or no change. Similarly, there is a relatively small increase in harassment incidences (1.1%), in fighting (1.4%), and in alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (7.7%). From 2001 to 2004, the number of harassment and fighting separately decreased by 200, which demonstrates that some strategy or intervention has occurred over that three-year period to effect this change. If a Miami-Dade County School administrator uncovered the same outcome with regard to these categories, it would be considered good news. There is only one instance where funding decreased and the incidences decreased and that is in property crime (-8.5%). Do these results mean that property crime is not a problem? Again, more in depth inquiry has to be employed to understand the issue more fully. With regard to safe programs and curricula, the district described the following goals:

Self-evaluation
1. Safe and security curriculum includes pro social skills, character education, conflictresolution and peer mediation; 2. Students are exposed to surveys consistent with the SESIR categories; 3. The school board and each school adopt violence and drug prevention, safety and health curricula, and programs designed to reduce violence, increase safety, and reduce the number of violence risk factors; 4. The district regularly reviews the performance of its intervention programs and revises, eliminates, or adds programs accordingly; and the self assessment for the 2003 to 2004 Miami-Dade County school district reported that the successful implementation of these initiatives depended upon the following curriculum: a Life Skills curricula, Peer Counseling/Mediation, Substance Education curricula (Grades PreK-5), Parenting for Drug Prevention curricula, Alternative to Indoor Suspension curricula, PIN (Proudly Infusing Nonviolence) curricula (Grades K,2,4,6,9), Peace Education Foundation curricula (Grades K-12), Elementary and secondary school support groups, Substance Education Program

Glades County
The apparent large changes in incidences given the SESIR categories must be viewed with extreme caution because the percent change is based on small absolute numbers of crime. For example, the increased percenttage change for total incidents (90%), violent acts against persons (118.4%), weapons possession (495.6%), and harassment (237.5%) did not reflect anaccurate representation of these acts occurring in the Glades County school district. In the case of disorderly conduct, weapons possession, and property crimes there were incidents that went from 0 to 1 or 1 to 3. Therefore, the analysis is compromised as it relates interpreting given the very small numbers of incidents data. Statistical data indicates that there were increases in five of the nine chart areas while at the same time funding decreased. Property crime incidents were the only category that revealed a substantial decrease in percent change (205% to 65%).

Self-evaluation
The 2003 to 2004 Glades self-assessment report differed from the Miami-Dade County assessment in a couple areas. First, in the Efficiency and Effectiveness section of the report, it revealed that the district did not regularly conduct an assessment of performance and cost of safety program (Florida Department of Education, 2007). Second, the assessment report revealed that Glades County schools did not have a curriculum and/or programs for improving the school culture and crime such as pro-social skills, character education, conflict reso-lution and peer mediation. The Glades County School Board have not adopted or implemented violence and drug prevention curriculum and programs to reduce incidence of violence (Florida Department of Education, 2007). Third, students in Glades County schools did not participate in the planning and implementation of violence and drug prevention programs (Florida Department of Education, 2007). Finally, Glades County students were not exposed to issues of violence prevention, conflict resolution, and communication/ decision making skills (Florida Department of Education, 2007). Although, it appears that some of the outcome responses from the self-assessment maybe consistent with some parts of the analysis more research is needed to confirm any links.

CONCLUSION
As mentioned earlier in the Literature Review, the issue of safety schools has come to the forefront of America's consciousness since the Columbine shootings. The nation's reaction and response reverberated throughout schools in this country. This study is just one in a multitude of studies attempting to understand school violence. The results from the Miami-Dade County school district suggested an overall decrease in total incidents and funding. A review of non-violent incidents and weapons possession revealed increases in incident percentage rates with a simultaneous decrease in funding. Analysis of the data indicated that there is a substantial decrease in percentage change in violent acts against persons and property while funding decreased.
However to the infusion of Safe School Funding, the Miami-Dade School District has already implemented interventions and strategies to control its school population. Since 1966, Miami-Dade County Public Schools have its own police department that has a stated responsibility to develop a partnership with members of the school community to improve relationships, reduce tensions, and increase trust. Miami-Dade also has more Student Arrests Referrals to the Juvenile-Justice System than the two counties that board it, Broward and Palm Beach. In 2004 to 2005, there were 130,030 suspensions (both in-and out-of-school), an average of one for every 2.8 students in the District.The results from the Glades County school district revealed an overall decrease in funding; however, there is a substantial increase in incidents. Five incidents categories experienced a significant increase in percentage changes when funding is decreased. Again, the statistical analysis demonstrated that large changes in crime categories occurred given the fact the percentage change is based on small absolute numbers of crimes.
The statistical analysis of Miami-Dade and Glades County mirrored the national statistics. A t-test is administered to determine significance in Hypothesis 2 . There is a significant increase in weapon possession in both counties. The possession of weapons on school campuses poses a tremendous risk to the health and well being of student populations and this problem is highlighted in several of the court challenges to Zero Tolerance procedures. The increased presence of weapons on school campuses undermines the ability of school districts to adequately address incidences of school violence and its fatalities. Therefore, the data indicates that with the increase of weapons possession in both districts Zero Tolerance policies are not being effectively implemented to decrease the level of weapons in these individual school settings. The results of Hypothesis 3 indicate that four out of the nine categories were significant. Total incidents decreased however and were not significant. A significant decrease in property crimes is observed after the resource reduction (p = .05). Harassment decreased and is significant at p < .001. Other non violent incidents increased and are significant at p < .001. Reported disorderly conduct is significantly less after the resource reduction (p = .05). Total incidents and resources decreased in Miami-Dade while total incidents in Glades County increased and resources decreased. From the data studied, there appears to be a relationship between a decrease in safe school funding in each of the years analyzed and an increase in school violent behaviors. Given these increases, each district has to ask two questions: 1. What is an acceptable amount of monies to address the educational needs of their students? 2. What type of program would be most effective to curbviolent behaviors in their respective districts?
Legal challenges both in Federal and State supreme courts have tried over the years to arrive at a suitable and equitable remedy to funding schools regardless of their socio-economic status (Odden and Piccus, 2000). However, FEFP funds do not appear to be adequate to significantly decrease this social problem. The fact that no statistically significant difference is found with respect to funding indicated that the slight decline in funding between the first year of analysis and the second year of analysis is minor and should not have led to any crucial change in behavior. This conclusion is borne out by the fact that there is no significant change in offenses from the first year of analysis to the second. Additionally, the fact that there is no significant difference between counties as to offenses indicated that a main distinction between the counties with respect to offenses is not the type of illicit behavior, but rather the sheer volume. In essence the behavioral problems which plague the public schools of South Florida are the same; be it a rural or urban environment. This conclusion is supported by the fact that, when offenses in Miami-Dade County during 2001 to 2002 were compared to the offences in Glades Countyduring 2001 to 2002, the results essentially mirrored each other, as the Pearson correlation coefficient is a robust .818. Moreover, for the 2003 to 2004 academic year, this relationship proved to be even stronger, with the associated correlation being computed to be .883.
In Florida's school finance program (FEFP), Safe Schools Funds are an essential part of the overall formula to bring safety and security in schools across the state, but how do you create safe schools? In this study, it is determined that there is a disconnection between the increase of school incidences of violent behavior and the appropriate amount of funding needed to decrease of these incidences. The Efficiency and Effectiveness and Safety Programs and Curricula sections of the self assessment of the School Safety and Security Best Practices with their Assorted Indicators were used to ascertain a general idea as to the inner workings of both (the urban and rural school districts) safe school programs. However, the State allows each district to conduct its own self-evaluation. Upon evaluation, it appears that the Miami-Dade County School district met the criteria for successful implementation and program operation with program aimed at promoting safe school environments through substance abuse, anti-violence, and social programming. However, there is no clear indication of what these programs consisted of or any real description of their strategies or interventions. However, Glades County school district did not have a procedure to assess performance of their programs in terms of efficiency and cost, nor did the school district promote preventative educational programs important in improving school culture and climate. In addition, the school district did not have educational component to teach each grade level violence prevention, conflict resolution, and decision-making skills.
One of three problems in the Florida's school finance program assessment procedures appears to be the selfevaluation surveys. Self-evaluations are processes of collecting and analyzing relevant information about a particular subject. The evaluation of programs is an essential aspect of demonstrating the existence of school improvement (Carter, 2006). It underlines the need for accountability in a governmental system that increasingly emphasizes local control and autonomy. The objective of evaluation methods is to extrapolate useful information so that decision makers can develop and implement costeffective programs but information contained from selfevaluation is often biased and colored by the experiences of the evaluator (Gay et al.,2006). Further, information extrapolated from a checklist is scarce at best, and does not describe the strategies or interventions taking place in the school. For the purpose of this study, it is difficult to ascertain if the self-evalua-tions are consistent with evaluation goals or objectives because little information is provided. For example, there is some mention of prevention programs; however, there is no mention of their strengths and weaknesses. The checklist attempts to place the information in an informational format, but the description, goal and objectives, as well as promised results, management of program staff, and common standards for service are lacking (Carter, 2006).Miami-Dade included the following programs: