The university of mississippi will implement curriculum in english classes that teach skills of civil dialogue and ethical reasoning; training authority figures such as parents, community members…

The University of Mississippi received a $1,942,318 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance under the STOP School Violence Program (CFDA 16.839). The grant will fund a comprehensive program to enhance school safety and prevent violence in 10 rural Mississippi school districts, impacting an estimated 22,000 students. Key program components include implementing curriculum on civil dialogue and ethical reasoning, providing training for authority figures such as parents, community members, and school staff, developing school safety plans and behavioral threat assessment programs, and creating student opportunity networks through after-school initiatives and state-wide competitions. The University will partner with the Center for Urban Family Health and Wholeness, a subrecipient, to deliver these services. The program includes robust research to assess implementation and effectiveness, advancing evidence-based practices on school climate. The award period is from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2027.

The university of mississippi will implement curriculum in english classes that teach skills of civil dialogue and ethical reasoning; training authority figures such as parents, community members (including law enforcement), school staff (counselors, administrators, and school resource officers), and teachers in civil dialogue and curriculum reinforcement; providing schools with safety plans and behavioral threat assessment training and technical assistance; and creating student opportunity networks through after-school programs and state-wide competitions for school teams. This interdisciplinary program with experts from philosophy and ethics, psychology, social work, education, and criminal justice brings the resources of multiple national centers based at the state flagship university to support the subrecipient partner, the center for urban family health and wholeness, to meet priority area 1B. The university-community partnership will benefit middle and high schools from ten rural school districts (covington county schools, hazlehurst public schools, hinds county schools, laurel public schools, mccomb public schools, moss point school district, north pike county schools, south pike county schools, vicksburg-warren county schools, and yazoo county schools) to impact an estimated 22,000 students. Expected outcomes include a reduction of truancy, verbal conflicts, bullying, and frequency and severity of violent behaviors, as well as an improvement of threat assessment, emergency planning, protective factors, and cohesive support and reinforcement. Professional development workshops and trainings will impact an estimated 150 teachers, 80 school resource officers, counselors, and administrators, and 30,000 parents and community members (including law enforcement). The program includes robust research to assess program implementation and effectiveness and to advance evidence-based practices on school climate using large-scale pre and post implementation surveys and focus group interviews, focused assessments after workshops and trainings, and extensive data on student learning and behavior.