The BAMA-STOP School Violence program is nearing the end of its $1.2 million effort to reduce violence in West Alabama educational settings with a final group of 10 schools for the 2025-26 school year.
The grant – a partnership between West Alabama school districts and The University of Alabama with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Justice – is creating safer, improved school climates through a holistic family-school-community approach that incorporates behavior threat assessment (BTA) into the schools.
“The concept of behavior threat assessment is one that is discussed (in the state), but it’s not necessarily something that Alabama K-12 schools have started to implement or require until recently,” said Dr. Daniela Susnara, Shelby Institute for Policy and Leadership program director.
Instead of relying on zero-tolerance policies involving severe disciplinary action, BTA assesses the violence risk and works to identify and question individuals who have threatened to harm someone then implements interventions to eliminate or reduce risks of that threat being carried out.
Susnara noted that for the first time she could recall a discussion on behavior threat analysis took place during this summer’s Alabama State Department of Education 2025 MEGA Conference, a testament to how important an issue BTA has become, particularly in recent years.
“(In Year 1 of BAMA-STOP,) we had only one school that knew what behavior threat assessment was or had any behavior threat assessment worked into their processes and policies, so we essentially started from the ground floor,” she said.
Now, seven schools – six high schools and one middle school – in Fayette County and Lamar County have successfully implemented the program and are incorporating the school safety policies that their BTA teams developed throughout the program. This year, BAMA-STOP includes 10 schools from across four West Alabama counties: Greene, Perry, Pickens and Sumter.
“Now that Year 1 is done, we’re revamping what Year 2 is going to look like,” Susnara said. “… It will be bigger, but now that we have the first year under our belt and saw how well it went, we’re very excited.”
Creating BTA teams allows each school to take a proactive approach, determining and addressing potential threats as opposed to potentially creating conflict through zero-tolerance policies. These teams are comprised of a diverse group of staff members, including administrators, counselors and social workers, teachers as well as school resource officers (SROs).
Once schools have assembled their BTA teams, the team members will accomplish the following: identifying prohibited or concerning behaviors, determining the threshold for law enforcement intervention, creating a threat reporting system if one is not in place, outlining a threat assessment procedure, conducting interviews of students, and, lastly, advising intervention as well as risk management options.
Like the pilot schools from Year 1, this year’s BTA teams will meet for comprehensive training and scaffolded workshop sessions throughout the school year, led by the BAMA-STOP team in conjunction with leading experts in field of threat assessment. The program will also provide support to these schools as they evaluate and update their safety practices.
“In our very first session, (Dr. Liza Wilson) concluded it by asking everyone, ‘Why are you at the table? Why are you here right now?’ That still sticks with me,” said Karyn Bowen, BAMA-STOP program coordinator with the Shelby Institute for Policy and Leadership. “I think that mirrors both our team and these school teams that are being brought together. Everyone has a different set of skills they are bringing, and I think our grant team does a good job of letting everybody’s skill set shine where it needs to shine, and… we try and put that to our school teams as well.”
The BAMA-STOP team received feedback from the principals, counselors and SROs of the pilot schools on how they can improve the program’s sessions, Susnara and Bowen said. One of the key takeaways was the importance of the inclusion of law enforcement and SROs.
“One of the standouts was that having a law enforcement officer speak (on his threat assessment experiences) not only gave credibility to the importance of school safety but that the SROs in the room felt like they had a voice by that person speaking to them,” said Dr. Holly Morgan, Co-PI of the grant and UA/UWA Regional Inservice Center director. “The teachers, counselors and administrators who weren’t necessarily trained on safety when they graduated also appreciated hearing those specifics.”
This is something BAMA-STOP aims to accomplish and expand on more this year as representatives from the Alabama Association of School Resource Officers plan to attend one or more of the sessions.
“We are excited about this partnership and bringing that group in to give some firsthand accounts of why BTA and mental health (awareness) is so important as well as to why our SROs need to be in the room and part of these teams,” Bowen said.
Susnara echoed that sentiment, stressing how important it is to bring those who deal with BTA daily into these sessions.
“It allows the participants to see that we recognize we need to have more voices in the room, and that we are not the only voices that they need to hear,” she said. “There are experts we want to make sure are included.”
These sessions also allow the schools to collaborate with one another and for their team members to have discussions and learn about the different perspectives coming from each school district. Morgan said some of the feedback they received from Year 1 administrators, teachers and counselors showed how much they valued the time they could plan as a team and having all these individuals in one room, bringing their knowledge and perspectives to the table.
“Each school is unique, so this was a tremendous opportunity for them to collaborate (with other districts) and to take back what we discussed and shared with them and give it that perspective of their community,” said Dr. Liza Wilson, UA Professor Emerita and one of the program’s Co-PIs. “One of the goals of these school safety action plans they develop is to bring in the community, to tailor the plans not only to their school’s needs but to the community’s needs as well.”
The schools also have the chance to apply to receive additional funding to help them implement and improve their school safety projects.
“Being able to award some of those funds based on what the (pilot) schools needed and wanted to strengthen or further advance and giving them the autonomy to decide how to use them was probably my favorite part of the program,” Susnara said.
This year’s schools had their first workshop session Sept. 10 in Livingston and will work on implementing their school safety projects in Fall 2026.
Susnara and the other BAMA-STOP team members look to the future with high hopes for another successful year.
“I think it’s the different skillsets that everyone brings to the table that makes the project go well,” she said. “We have worked with one another for a long time, and I think that makes it easy for the teams to be collaborative, too, because that is how we approach everything.”
Bowen made a callback to Wilson’s comments to the pilot schools’ BTA teams during their first workshop session.
“(Dr. Wilson saying) ‘Why are you at this table? You’re here for a reason, and let’s reflect on that.’ That perfectly encompasses the journey that we are on with this program.”
