Top 5 stories from K-12 Dive

A constitutional challenge against Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act will no longer be pursued in a lawsuit filed by 17 states last year, according to a joint status report submitted by plaintiffs and defendants to the court earlier this month. 

Disability rights advocates and families with children who receive Section 504 accommodations in schools have raised concerns about the states' lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That lawsuit, filed in September, challenges an HHS rule that includes gender dysphoria in the definition of a disability under Section 504 and originally argued that Section 504 was unconstitutional. 

While Section 504’s constitutionality is no longer being challenged, disability rights advocates say they are still on alert to legal proceedings and regulatory actions that would take away protections for transgender people with disabilities. 

The joint status report also notes that HHS, as defendants, are continuing to evaluate their position as a result of President Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order shunning "gender ideology extremism." The directive said U.S. policy will only recognize two sexes — male and female.

The states' lawsuit challenges a HHS rule finalized in May 2024 under the Biden administration that requires child care, preschool, elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and career and technical education programs to provide Section 504 services to students with gender dysphoria. The term describes the distress felt when one’s gender expression doesn’t match their gender identity.

Additionally, on April 11, HHS published a clarification to the preamble of the Section 504 regulation, saying that the language concerning gender dysphoria "does not have the force or effect of law. Therefore, it cannot be enforced." 

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in K-12 schools and colleges that receive federal funds. Students’ Section 504 accommodations can include academic, mental and physical supports.

In a Feb. 14 update on its website, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund said that if Section 504 were declared unconstitutional, it would be “a disaster for people with disabilities.”

The states involved in the case are: Texas, Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas.

At the beginning of the year, the Maine Department of Education was — like other state systems — bracing for changes to K-12 policies and practices that would come with a transition between presidential administrations. 

But just weeks after inauguration, Maine had received multiple letters from federal agencies warning the state about its transgender athlete policies, become the target of multiple federal investigations, and teetered on the brink of losing potentially millions of dollars in federal funding. 

The rapid twists and turns in Maine's case may not be unique. The U.S. Department of Education seems to be taking a new, more aggressive approach to its civil rights investigations — despite shutting half of its civil rights enforcement offices across the nation — as shown by communications from the department and the recent investigations themselves. 

“To better serve American students and families, changes are being made as to how OCR will conduct its operations," Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said in a March 12 email to K-12 Dive.

In less than three months since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, the department’s Office for Civil Rights has launched targeted investigations into some of the nation's largest school systems, fast-tracked investigations with half the manpower, and moved to cut school systems off from federal funding. 

The faster pace of OCR's work and its investigations' high stakes mark a significant shift for schools, which under previous administrations took months and even years of investigation and negotiation proceedings to settle federal probes. Rarely did schools have to grapple with cuts to federal funding as a result of civil rights investigations — and rarely did those investigations move so quickly. 

"I think those days are over … We're definitely in unprecedented times," said Brett Sokolow, chair of education civil rights consulting firm TNG and president of the Association of Title IX Administrators. "It's a mess." 

'It feels very, very targeted'

A harbinger of these changes came in the salvos launched by multiple agencies against the Maine Department of Education over alleged Title IX violations. 

Triggered by a public spat between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills about the state's transgender athlete policy in February — which ended with Mills telling Trump, "See you in court" — the Education Department launched an investigation into the Maine education system alongside a parallel probe into the state by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

The investigation was "directed" — that is, it was initiated by the government without an allegation of civil rights violations from the public.

"All of these actions taken in concert in a very short window of time are coupled with directed investigations that are happening pretty rapid-fire," said Kayleigh Baker, a consultant with TNG. "And so it feels very, very targeted." 

The HHS investigation into the Maine Department of Education concluded Feb. 25, just four days after it began, finding that Maine violated Title IX. The probe was then expanded on March 5 to include the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School. Less than two weeks after that expansion, on March 17, the federal agency found all three entities in violation of Title IX. 

Two days later, on March 19, the Education Department ended its own investigation into Maine that had been launched just shy of a month earlier on Feb. 21.

Following in HHS’ footsteps, the Education Department also found Maine in violation of Title IX. The department, however, had hinted at the findings the same day it launched its investigation on Feb. 21. 

“Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX," said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, in a Feb. 21 statement. Combined, the Maine Department of Education receives over $672 million annually from the HHS and Education Department as of 2023.

"If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice," said Trainor. "OCR will do everything in its power to ensure taxpayers are not funding blatant civil rights violators.” 

In a statement that same day, Mills called the outcome of the investigation "all but predetermined." 

Less than a month later, on March 19 — and after what a spokesperson for the Maine Principals Association described as a "targeted" investigation lacking interviews or any other investigative tools — the Education Department confirmed its own suspicions. 

“The outcome of OCR’s investigation of MDOE confirms that it has violated federal antidiscrimination law by allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports and boys to occupy girls’ intimate facilities," said Trainor in a March 19 statement. 

Circumventing its own standard 90-day timeline for school systems to sign such documents, the department would send a draft resolution agreement to the Maine Department of Education with a caveat: Agree in 10 days or lose federal funding.

'This is only the beginning'

The cascade of actions from multiple federal agencies into the Maine Department of Education, the quick turnaround of investigations into the state department, and the high stakes attached — including referring the case to the Department of Justice, another rarely used tactic — raised eyebrows in the education civil rights community. 

"It's a very stark change in enforcement," said Baker. Prior to this administration, the department had very rarely rescinded federal funds for being out of compliance with civil rights laws. "It was a stick that existed out there …. but it wasn't one that was used." 

The Biden administration said it didn't seek to cut funding from schools because that would ultimately harm students — who would lose services funded by the money.

“Under prior administrations, enforcement was an illusory proposition," said Trainor in a final warning issued March 31 to the Maine Department of Education. "No more." 

Since Trump took office in January, his administration has canceled or threatened the cancellation of more than $9.5 billion for Ivy League universities over alleged Title VI and Title IX violations related to antisemitism and LGBTQ+ policies, threatened some 60 colleges and a handful of districts with additional loss of funding over allegations of antisemitism, and promised that "this is only the beginning." 

“Freezing the funds is one of the tools we are using,” said Leo Terrell, head of the Department of Justice Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, in a March 7 statement related to Columbia's antisemitism case. 

Threats to withhold funding have carried over to many other areas of civil rights enforcement by the Education Department. 

On Thursday, for example, the administration threatened to withdraw funds from states unless their schools certify compliance with Title VI, including the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

"Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right," said Trainor in an April 3 memo to states.

More of Maine on the horizon?

The Education Department's investigation into Maine’s education system was among the first in a string of investigations by the new Trump administration. 

Investigations into other big education systems such as the California Department of Education — which was also directed — and Chicago Public Schools — launched after a complaint from conservative civil rights organizations — would follow. It launched a second directed investigation into Maine’s education department on March 28, this time for its reported use of gender plans allegedly violating privacy policies under the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act. 

In these cases and others where funding hangs on the line, the administration has framed excluding transgender students from female athletics teams as a "women's rights" issue, and other LGBTQ+ issues like the use of preferred pronouns as alleged violations of privacy laws and parental rights. 

"I think that we are going to see more of exactly what we're seeing with Maine," said Baker. "We're going to see a directed investigation, a finding of noncompliance, a short window to agree to change the policy or practice, followed by enforcement — probably to DOJ."

In Maine's case, a resolution agreement drafted by the Education Department would require the state education department to apologize to each cisgender girl impacted by the state policy allowing transgender athletes to participate on girls' teams “for allowing her educational experience and participation in school sports to be marred by sex discrimination." 

The department would also have to notify public schools and require them to adopt a policy that “females” are defined by “a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs (ova)” and “males” by having “a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm.” “Gender” would be the same as “sex” under the agreement.

When the Maine Education Department refused to sign the agreement, the administration said it was "moving quickly to ensure that federal funds no longer support patently illegal practices that harm women and girls." Maine was given until April 11 to sign the resolution agreement or have the case referred to DOJ with the state’s federal education funding potentially on the line. 

The Maine Department of Education declined to comment on the case, which is now with the state’s attorney general. However, Mills made clear from the start of the Education Department investigation that she would be taking the case to court.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has launched and publicized at least seven investigations — a handful of which are directed and related to similar LGBTQ+ issues — into public school districts or systems as of April 3. All of the elementary and secondary education institutions investigated have been located primarily in Democratic-leaning areas. 

By a similar time after President Joe Biden's 2020 inauguration, OCR had launched investigations into at least 33 elementary and secondary school systems across both Democrat and Republican-leaning areas. Those investigations, which remain open, came at a time when most were launched by the Education Department based on public complaints, and they covered a slew of civil rights issues ranging from disability discrimination to racial discrimination. 

The Education Department investigations are in line with the Trump administration's broader approach to enforcement, said Jackie Gharapour Wernz, a civil rights attorney who founded Education Civil Rights Solutions.

The administration is saying, "If you are a woke district out there, we are coming for you," Gharapour Wernz said about the current OCR's strategy. Gharapour Wernz was an attorney for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under the Obama administration and Trump’s first term. 

Sokolow said some of the current administration's decisions, however, are not unlike those made during past administrations. Under the Obama administration, for example, OCR head Russlynn Ali used the compliance reviews of at least six education institutions that the administration believed to be mishandling sexual harassment and assault complaints as a means "to scare everybody else and get them in line." 

Department: 'investigations are conducted efficiently'

The department's decision to hit the gas pedal for civil rights investigations comes as half of OCR's regional offices were shut down due to department layoffs that shaved off half its staff. The OCR office shutdowns impacted half of states nationwide, leaving questions for how it will continue conducting thorough investigations and overseeing enforcement.

In fact, those limitations have already led to lawsuits from the National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, and the American Federation of Teachers, as well as letters from Democratic lawmakers. 

The Department of Education, however, told K-12 Dive in a March 12 email that "the dedicated staff of OCR will deliver on its statutory responsibilities.”

Biedermann confirmed that "OCR’s recently revised Case Processing Manual is designed to ensure investigations are conducted efficiently and no longer impose undue evidentiary burdens on both recipients and OCR staff." 

She said OCR will step up its use of mediation and the expedited case processing approach, known as rapid resolution, to address disability- and harassment-related complaints.

Civil rights attorneys familiar with OCR operations have speculated that the agency may also depend more on HHS and the DOJ for enforcement. The Education Department formally initiated that shift last week, when it announced that the Justice Department would help investigate and ultimately enforce the separation of transgender students from girls’ and women’s athletics teams and spaces in schools and colleges. 

"I don't think they're just trying to feed red meat to the base," Sokolow said of the Trump administration's aggressive approach to civil rights enforcement in education. "We're part of a bigger experiment on executive branch authority." 

A swell of parents, advocates, educators and Democratic politicians are sounding alarms that the dramatic downsizing of the U.S. Department of Education will chip away at civil rights protections for students with disabilities and even negatively impact their classroom supports.

In just the past two months, the Education Department under the Trump administration has laid off half of its 4,133-person workforce, paused federal funding, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, canceled research and teacher preparation grants, and promoted private school choice. 

And last week, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to develop a plan to dissolve the nearly 45-year-old education agency altogether. That move, which has already drawn two lawsuits from unions, school districts and advocates, would need approval from Congress.

In the dismantling, the Trump administration plans to transfer federal special education oversight from the Education Department to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Details of how that transition would work are not yet available.

The changes, proponents say, would reduce federal bureaucracy and give local communities more decision-making authority over spending and services for students. 

During the March 20 White House ceremony for the signing of the Education Department executive order to begin to close the agency, Trump said funding for students with disabilities will be "fully preserved."

While some of the actions to date are being paused or temporarily reversed through court action, the weight of the collective change will trickle down to local levels where parents, educators and advocates who oppose the measures say they fear an erosion of supports for students with disabilities. 

"Parents are going to have to fight harder than they have fought in 60 years for accountability," said Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan resident and advocate for students with disabilities. 

Protecting students' rights

Lipsitt, a prolific filer of disability discrimination complaints to the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, said that without robust federal enforcement of students' protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it will be harder for parents to ensure their children's classes have a qualified special education teacher or that students are receiving promised physical, speech or occupational therapies. 

Lipsitt is concerned that with recent workforce cuts to OCR, investigations into disability discrimination complaints will be dramatically slowed. Earlier this month, the Education Department closed seven of its 12 regional civil rights enforcement offices. 

On March 14, the National Center for Youth Law filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration's "abdication of responsibility in processing civil rights investigations." The suit, filed on behalf of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and two parents with pending OCR claims, seeks a court order restoring OCR's capacity to process complaints and conduct investigations.

Parents of children with disabilities can file a civil rights complaint under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act through the Education Department's OCR complaint process. IDEA gives parents the right to file a due process complaint regarding a dispute about their child's individualized services. Additionally, anyone — including parents, advocates, organizations and others — can submit a written state complaint to report a potential violation of IDEA at the school, district or state level. 

Filing an OCR complaint and written state complaint, while time-consuming, is typically free to parents. Filing a due process complaint, on the other hand, can often require upfront costs for retaining a lawyer. Likewise, most school districts need to have attorneys to argue their side. 

Nationally, both written state complaints and due process complaints have been increasing in recent years, according to federal data analyzed by the Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education. 

Lipsitt predicts that state complaints will increase even more with the expected slowdown in OCR complaint investigations. Parents will have to push harder than they've "had to fight since the 1950s," Lipsitt said. "No accountability — that will be the battle parents will be facing."

But even if the OCR complaint process slows down due to staff limitations, parents can still use the state complaint process, said Jose Martín, an attorney with Richards, Lindsay & Martín in Austin, Texas, which represents school districts. And depending on the state, that process can be an effective approach to resolving parents' grievances, Martín said. 

"It's not a blow-off thing. We've had complaints that have resulted in the districts having to take definite corrective action," Martín said.

Holding states and districts accountable

Students with disabilities comprised about 15% of the K-12 student population in the 2022-23 school year. The federal government, under IDEA, provided $15.4 billion for supports to about 8.4 million infants, toddlers, schoolchildren and young adults with disabilities in fiscal year 2024. Yet federal funding for special education only accounts for about 10%, or around $1,810, of the total per-student cost.

The federal government doesn't play a direct role in students' individualized education programs, which are developed by teachers and parents and detail the type and frequency of each student’s specialized supports. But the Education Department does disburse the funding appropriated by Congress for such services. 

The department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilatives Services and Office of Special Education Programs also conduct monitoring, provide technical assistance to states and districts, and hold states and districts accountable for compliance with IDEA.

In the most recent Education Department layoffs, no OSEP employees lost their jobs, according to a March 14 letter to education stakeholders from Hayley Sanon, principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of the department's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

The letter also said that OSERS employees who were let go were involved in policy, operations and administrative functions that were "either duplicative or can be reassigned to create a more efficient and accountable organizational structure."

Even if the monitoring of special education services is tempered at the federal level, that doesn't necessarily mean school districts will abandon compliance or that states will water down their own oversight, Martín said. In fact, some states already go above and beyond the required federal special education accountability.

Valerie C. Williams, who led OSEP under President Joe Biden, said the office not only conducts monitoring activities but also helps states and districts to problem solve on challenges such as special educator shortages and increasing the inclusion of special education students in general education classrooms. 

If there are fewer federal special education staff, there would be less capacity to support districts and states in overcoming these and other challenges, Williams said. That would trickle down to the district and school levels, which would have fewer resources to support classroom best practices, she added. 

"How long it takes is a question mark, but it will absolutely show up," Williams said.

Promising education freedom

Supporters of closing the Education Department say the move would not only create efficiencies but would also empower school systems and families to make decisions based on their students' or children's needs. 

One approach for giving parents more school options that is favored by the Trump administration and many conservative lawmakers is private school choice, where taxpayer money is used to support private school tuition or services like tutoring and therapies. 

At least 184,450 students with disabilities participate in private school choice programs nationwide, according to a paper published this month by EdChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for expanded school choice options. These students comprise about 15% of private school enrollment, which is about the same percentage of students in public schools who have disabilities.   

And even though private schools do not have to comply with IDEA, parents of children with disabilities are increasingly opting for private school choice because of the flexibility and options for educational supports, said Mike McShane, director of national research at EdChoice.

McShane points to the litigious nature of special education in public schools, where families have to file due process complaints to attempt to get services and supports they feel their child is entitled to. That struggle causes some to forfeit the IDEA protections in public school for the private school options they feel best fit their child's needs. 

"We hear all of this sort of fear mongering of what could go wrong," McShane said. "But hundreds of thousands of parents are taking that deal. They're saying, 'OK, sure. IDEA may not apply in the same way to private schools as it does to public schools.'"

Public school and disability civil rights defenders, however, warn that private school choice programs threaten to reverse the progress IDEA has made in the past 50 years in ensuring equitable access to public education for students with disabilities. They also point out that private schools can choose not to admit students with disabilities, whereas public schools must educate all learners.

Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, said in a recent webinar with disability civil rights leaders that some families participating in school choice programs understand that their children's IDEA rights don't follow them to private school. 

However, she said, there are many other families "who do not understand that they are giving up their federal rights to access funds, or that that choice requires them to basically say, ‘The civil rights of my student don't matter,’" Marshall said.

Advocates, Marshall said, "are not interested in any kind of change to the arrangement which either destroys public education or separates the 8 million students with disabilities … from their federal rights through federal vouchers or block grants.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Wednesday setting out school choice as a major priority for the U.S. Department of Education as well as other federal agencies involved in K-12 education.

In a separate executive order issued the same day, Trump directed multiple agencies to cease “federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” 

These two new executive orders come as Trump has unleashed a wave of K-12 related policy moves — from immigration enforcement to removing DEI initiatives — just a little over a week into his second term.

The school choice executive order calls for the Education Department to prepare guidance for states within 60 days on how they can tap into federal funding formulas to bolster K-12 education choice programs. He also directed the department to develop plans for using its discretionary grant programs "to expand education freedom for America's families and teachers."

Trump also directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance within 90 days on how states can use HHS block grants, including the Child Care and Development Block Grant, to expand school choice for families who want options including “private and faith-based options.” 

Additionally, the order gives the U.S. Department of Defense 90 days to review options for military families who may want to use DoD dollars to “attend schools of their choice, including private, faith-based, or public charter schools” for the 2025-26 school year. The include includes a similar directive for the Interior Department regarding Bureau of Indian Education Schools. 

Meanwhile, Trump's executive order on "ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling" calls for eliminating federal funding or support for what it labels "illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology." 

It defined “discriminatory equity ideology” as an "ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations."

Students, in recent years and in many cases, have been, "compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics," the order said.  

The directive will also reestablish the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission created in his first term “to promote patriotic education.”

The school choice executive order came the same day as disappointing results were released for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The 2024 assessment showed students are trailing behind pre-pandemic levels in math and reading. Trump's executive order in fact cited the NAEP findings, saying “too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run K-12 school.”

The order's immediate impact on the education landscape will likely be fairly limited, said Chester Finn Jr., a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. That’s “because the big programs that control most of the K-12 money at the Department of Ed are prescribed by statutes in ways that don’t work for school choice.” 

“The portion of the Department of Ed’s dollars that could be directly affected by this is very small,” Finn said. It would take “major congressional overhaul” to make any significant spending changes from the department in favor of school choice, he said, given the agency’s largest funding programs like Title I and special education are controlled by statute.  

Meanwhile, Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Tim Scott, R-S.C., reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would create a charitable donation incentive — up to $10 billion in annual tax credits — for individuals and businesses funding scholarships that help students cover their public and private K-12 education expenses. 

Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb filed a companion bill, the Educational Choice for Children Act., in the House with 26 Republican co-sponsors.

Some school choice advocates, including the America First Policy Institute, are celebrating the momentum.

The Educational Choice for Children Act “is a significant step towards fulfilling President Trump's promise to provide school choice to every family in America. Expanding scholarship access for K-12 students via this bill ensures every child has the opportunity to thrive, regardless of their family's income or ZIP code,” said Erika Donalds, chair of AFPI’s Center for Education Opportunity. 

On the flip side, some education organizations and teacher unions have expressed concern about the federal push for school choice policies. 

The Education Law Center said in a statement that “President Trump added to his spate of unacceptable executive orders one that forces harmful, unaccountable private school voucher programs on a nation that does not want or benefit from them.”

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement that this effort is “likely [an] illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.” AFT is the nation's second largest teachers union. 

“We already know that vouchers go mostly to wealthy families whose kids are already in private school. This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators — a tax cut for the rich,” Weingarten said. “It diminishes community schools and the services they provide. It dilutes crucial literacy and arts education grants.”

School shootings in 2024 dipped slightly from the year before, but the 330 school shootings recorded last year still mark the second-highest number since 1966. The 2024 count fell only 19 below the all-time high of 349 incidents recorded in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.

In fact, the highest number of annual school shootings over the past six decades came in 2021-2024, according to the database. That's despite increased efforts to harden schools with cameras and weapons detection systems, as well as bolster resources to address students' emotional and mental well-being. 

The database defines school shootings as any time a gun is fired or brandished with intent or when a bullet hits school property, regardless of the number of victims, time, day or reason. 

Other trackers use different metrics. For example, Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates to end gun violence, tracked at least 219 incidents of gunfire on school grounds — either K-12 or college campuses — in 2024. Everytown's data tracks incidents that resulted in a person being shot and killed or wounded, as well as those in which a gun was discharged and no one was shot.

There is no nationally standard definition of a school shooting.

School shootings continue to confound education leaders as each incident presents a unique set of factors leading to the shooting, but there are some commonalities to the 2024 shootings, according to David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database and an assistant professor at Idaho State University. 

Those trends include:
 

• Four of the five preplanned attacks at schools in 2024 were committed by current students at the school. Those include the Sept. 4 shooting at Georgia's Apalachee High School that left four dead and nine injured and the Dec. 16 shooting at Wisconsin's Abundant Life Christian School that killed three and wounded at least six others. According to the database, 43% of school shooters between 1966 and 2024 attended the school where the incident took place.

• The combined number of people wounded and killed due to school shootings last year — 269 — marked the second-highest recorded since 1966, according to a dataset sent to K-12 Dive on Jan. 2. The highest rate came in 2022 with 277, according to that dataset. That year, a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

• Most on-campus shootings occurred due to fights that escalated into gun violence. That mirrors the trend of recent years.
• School shootings most commonly came during dismissal, sporting events and morning classes.
• Most shootings occurred at high schools, followed by elementary schools. 

School threats in 2024 caused panic and anxiety in school communities, said school security expert Ken Trump in a Jan. 1 essay posted on the National School Safety and Security Services website. Trump is president of the school safety consulting firm. 

"The 'contagion effect' following high-profile school shootings accelerated threats across the nation," Trump wrote. "We still have a good deal of work to do in 2025 to better support school leaders in what I call, 'Assess and then react, not react and then assess.'”

Best practices for prevention and response

As school shootings have risen, school and district leaders have sought solutions to prevent gun violence, along with best practices for responding to tragic incidents.

Some school systems used federal COVID-19 emergency funds to add physical safeguards to their campuses. Such measures included controlling building access, issuing badges for staff and visitors, using security cameras and metal detectors, and hiring school resource officers. 

"I don't think there is a clear connection between increased school security and the rate of shootings," said Reidman, in a Dec. 11 email to K-12 Dive. Reidman shared. a news report about an April 2024 Dallas school shooting where a student was shot and injured in a building that had metal detectors. The article cited sources saying the metal detectors were functioning, but staff failed to follow certain protocols.

Districts have also used the one-time boost in recovery money to hire additional counselors and mental health specialists, add social and emotional supports, and implement practices to encourage school attendance and belonging.

Safety experts highlight two additional practices as proven and key: safe and secure gun storage in homes and a school environment that encourages students to share concerns without the fear of being disciplined.  

But for when the worst happens, the Principals Recovery Network offers a Guide to Recovery for administrators dealing with the immediate aftermath and longer-term effects of gun violence. The network, which was founded in 2019 through the National Association of Secondary School Principals, includes around 20 current and former administrators who have experienced school shootings.

Michael Bennett, a founding member, was a teacher at Columbia High School in East Greenbush, New York, in 2004, when he was struck by a bullet in his leg by a student shooter. He was the only person injured during that incident. While he recovered from the noncritical injury in a short time, he said he struggled mentally and emotionally for many years afterward even while progressing in his education career. 

"I lost a lot of trust with people," Bennett said. "I began to feel as though people just wanted to get to know me and know my story, but not really care about, you know, what I was going through."

It wasn't until after the 2018 Parkland High School shooting in Florida, which left 17 students and staff dead and 17 others injured, that Bennett said he felt ready to share his story with students and staff. 

Bennett is now superintendent of Greenville Central School District in New York and continues to work with the Principal Recovery Network to help administrators respond to gun violence incidents and to advocate nationally for school safety improvements.

"People don't think it's going to happen there," Bennett said. "It does happen. And I think by me being able to talk to educators, to law enforcement, to communities, in regards to our due diligence, that we have to be proactive and not reactive."

Bennett said it can be difficult for some administrators to discuss safety vulnerabilities or to express their school safety concerns. 

"But at the end of the day, we're all in this to help keep kids safe and well. If we are too proud or too arrogant, or whatever you want to say, to address the needs or the possible failures of our school districts in regards to things we need to be doing better, we're missing the boat," Bennett said. 

"We're just crossing our fingers, hoping that we're not the next one on the TV saying, 'I can't believe it happened here.'"

Predictions for 2025

Looking ahead to the new year, Riedman predicts funding challenges could stymie school safety efforts. School districts have reached the end of federal COVID-19 emergency aid.

Trump, the school safety expert, also said maintaining funding for school safety measures will be a challenge with the winding down of COVID funding. "It is likely they will not be able to sustain the costs, will end up having to cut back, and then will have to explain how they got in this position to their school communities," he wrote in his Jan. 1 post.

Riedman also forecasts that the promises made by President-elect Donald Trump to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, shrink education funding, and thin out other government agencies could adversely impact schools, districts and states that use federal grant programs and technical assistance to boost safety. 

"Without a federal department investigating online threats, many school shooting plots — especially those made by someone in another state — would not be averted," Riedman said.

Trump's campaign platform said Republicans would support "overhauling standards on school discipline, advocate for immediate suspension of violent students, and support hardening schools to help keep violence away from our places of learning."

Riedman, in an analysis sent on Jan. 1 to subscribers to his school safety Substack newsletter, predicted about 30 school shootings would occur in January, with most resulting from escalated fights between students at dismissal time either in front of the school or in the parking lot.

"It's impossible to know which 30 campuses will experience this senseless and preventable gun violence," Riedman said. "When we haven't taken any meaningful action to stop them, the only certainty is these shootings will happen somewhere in 2025.”