Virginia school threat assessment law

Do Virginia schools have to have threat assessment teams?

Yes, for public school divisions. Each division superintendent "shall establish, for each school, a threat assessment team." Each local school board must adopt policies for setting up teams, covering assessment of and intervention with individuals whose behavior may threaten the safety of school staff or students. One team may serve one or more schools, as the division superintendent decides. DCJS (the state Department of Criminal Justice Services) says all Virginia pre-K-12 public schools must be covered by a threat assessment team, a duty it dates to 2013 legislation.

Who must be on the team?

Each team must include members with expertise in counseling, instruction, school administration and law enforcement. A school that employs a school resource officer must have at least one on its team. The DCJS model calls for a designated team leader, typically a principal or other administrator. A superintendent may create a committee to oversee the division's teams; if so, it must include expertise in human resources, education, school administration, mental health and law enforcement.

What process must teams follow?

Board policies must be consistent with the model policies of the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety (the Center, part of DCJS). The Center, working with the Department of Education, must give schools a model policy for setting up teams. Policies must include procedures for referrals to community services boards or health care providers for evaluation or treatment, when appropriate. Each team must give students, faculty and staff guidance on recognizing threatening or unusual behavior that may be a threat to the community, the school or the student. The DCJS model asks board policies to require all division employees, volunteers and contractors to report expressed threats or threatening behavior.

What training is required?

New team members must complete initial threat assessment training, and all members must take refresher training every three years. Board policies must also require, within existing annual training, training for team members on emergency substantial risk orders and substantial risk orders (court orders that temporarily bar a person from having firearms). The Center must train public school staff to identify students who may be at risk for violent behavior, and VCSCS offers several threat assessment training sessions each year. The DCJS model expects all core and backup team members to complete basic School Threat Assessment Training through DCJS or the equivalent.

What must happen after a threat is found?

When a team makes a preliminary determination that a student poses a threat of violence or physical harm to self or others, it must immediately report it to the division superintendent or designee. The superintendent or designee must immediately try to notify the student's parent or legal guardian. Parents must receive materials that include information on emergency substantial risk orders and the safe storage of firearms. The notice duty does not stop school staff from acting right away on an imminent threat. The Board of Education must develop guidelines, with criteria and preapproved materials, for what parents receive. VDOE has issued those guidelines, and a DCJS memo dated February 17, 2026 tells divisions to use them. Divisions may use the Board-approved materials or choose their own under the guidelines' criteria. The guidelines say divisions must update their policies so safety materials go to parents promptly when a student poses a threat of violence or physical harm to self or others. In the DCJS model, when the level of concern is moderate, high or imminent, the administrator notifies the parents of both the targeted student and the student who made the threat.

What happens to threat assessment records?

After a preliminary determination of a threat, significantly disruptive behavior or need for help, a team may obtain criminal history record information. Team members are listed among those who may receive criminal history records, and health care providers may disclose health records to a school board's team. Team members may not redisclose criminal history or health information obtained this way. That subsection is the section's only records provision; it sets nothing on sending threat assessment records to a student's new school. Under Virginia's public records law (FOIA), a school team's information about assessing or intervening with a specific individual is excluded from mandatory disclosure. When team information must be released after a serious act, identifying details of anyone who gave information under a promise of confidentiality must be removed. Under the state's public school records schedule, threat assessment records for students who left after June 30, 2024 must be kept 7 years after the student graduates, transfers or withdraws, then destroyed confidentially. The DCJS model says juvenile or criminal history information may not go in a student's main school record unless the school is taking disciplinary action.

What must be reported to the state?

Each team must collect quantitative data on its activities and report it to the Center using the Center's case management tool. The Center must develop that tool. DCJS says the data are submitted through the annual School Safety Survey after the school year closes.

Is there funding?

The Center must provide technical assistance on threat assessment protocols "with such funds as may be available." DCJS reports a federal STOP School Violence grant of $1,998,940 over three years to develop the case management tool.

What changed recently?

The section's most recent amendments are 2025, c. 500 and 2026, c. 46. HB 2679, effective July 1, 2025, amended the section and added the subsection on Board guidelines for parent materials. HB 1071 (2026), enacted as 2026 Acts c. 46, added the annual risk-order training for team members and risk-order information in the materials given to parents.