Texas Educators' Needs Assessment Regarding School Safety

September 21, 2020- The Governor's School and Firearm Safety Action Plan has placed a bold goal before the state: Becoming better at protecting our students and teachers. To inform this adaptive moment in the state's education system, the Office of the Governor's Public Safety Office partnered with the Center for Assessment, Research, and Educational Safety (CARES) at Sam Houston State University to conduct a comprehensive assessment of Texas educators' needs pertaining to safety. With support from the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) as an evaluator, the Texas Education Agency, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, CARES researchers were able to collect data from 25,161 educators in both the K-12 and higher education levels. Nearly half-of-a-million educators were invited to participate in the census-style, mixed methods study which asked educators in 10 employment categories to respond to quantitative and open-ended questions. The survey was launched February 26, 2020 and obtained a 6.1% response rate with educators from every region, institutional type, and urbanicity responding to the survey. Following the quantitative survey, CARES researchers also conducted 11 interviews with participants from every employment category except for one. Thus, this mixed methods study provided quantitative and qualitative data on Texas educators' safety and training needs. Findings in this report should be reviewed as a basic, descriptive overview of participants' perceptions. Requests for additional analyses and further research will enhance findings from these data.