School security measures (SSMs), which include school resource officers (SROs), security cameras, and metal detectors, are used in elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States (Musu-Gillette et al., 2019) and can cost school systems up to $21 million per year (DeAngelis et al., 2011). Beyond their cost, SSMs are used frequently even though the available evidence suggests that these measures may compound current disadvantages for certain groups of students (e.g., students who are Black or Hispanic or students who are economically disadvantaged), and that they are associated with lower attendance rates, lower academic achievement, increased student arrest rates, and worse school safety outcomes (such as increased use of drugs, fighting and firearm possession at school). Using a publicly available, national dataset, the current study examined how patterns of SSMs are related to students’ perceptions of school safety and reported academic achievement, and how this relationship varied in the presence of different SSMs for students with different sociodemographic identities (e.g., White, not Hispanic/Latina girl) in 6th through 12th grades.Overall, the presence of SSMs was not significantly associated with sense of safety or academic achievement, and sense of safety was not significantly associated with academic achievement. Results suggest that Black boys felt less safe in the presence of any type of SSM as compared to no SSMs and the association between SSMs and sense of safety was more pronounced for Black boys as compared to White, not Hispanic/Latino boys. Similarly, White, not Hispanic/Latina girls felt less safe in the presence of SROs only, SROs and cameras, and metal detectors alone or in the presence of other SSMs as compared to no SSMs. While Black boys felt significantly safer than White, not Hispanic/Latino boys when no SSMs were present, there were no patterns of SSMs which were associated with students’ increased sense of safety or improved academic achievement for any subgroup. These findings align with previous research suggesting that SSMs have disparate impacts on students of color and particularly Black students, and do not contribute to increased sense of safety for students. The disparate impact of SSMs for Black students, the limited benefits that SSMs provide, and their economic cost all suggest that SSMs may not be a worthwhile investment for school systems or the students these systems are supposed to support.
