State Report on the Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act: U.S. States and Other Jurisdictions, 2020-21 School Year

The federal Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) enacted in1994 requires U.S. public school systems to report any incident of a student bringing a firearm to school or being in possession of a firearm on school property, the law applies to all states and jurisdictions funded under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Under federal law, states must also enact their own laws that require local education agencies(LEAs) to expel students for firearm offenses for a period of no less than 1 year. State education agencies (SEAs) must submit data to the secretary of education on an annual basis, reporting the number of students who were expelled for firearm offenses under the law during the 12-monthreporting period. The report describes the GFSA review process and results and includes a summary of how the quality of data submissions improved as the result of the data review and feedback process with states. The report also summarizes compliance with GFSA reporting mandates and data on firearm incidents for SY 2019-20 and includes detail about the number of incidents reported by student grade level, weapon type, and disciplinary action resulting from violations of the law. The report also presents comparisons to incident counts and rates from prior school years to explore changes in incident rates across time. However, it is important to note that data for SY 2020-21 are not comparable to prior school years of reporting because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in many schools across the country operating remotely for the whole school year or part of the school year. With many students not on campus for in-person instruction, incidents of firearm possession and related disciplinary actions were generally lower than in previous years, even with SY 2019-20 being truncated due to COVID-19 related closures across the country. Any year to-year comparative data should be interpreted with caution. [For the "State Report on the Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act: U.S. States and Other Jurisdictions, 2019-20 School Year, see ED628880.]