Every day, millions of students face the threat of violence in their schools.
Join the Northern Star Coalition to provide free services, training and resources. Together, we can create safer schools and communities.
The statistics are shocking. The reality is preventable.
On May 24, 2022, a mother in Uvalde ran through police lines to save her children — and screamed into a camera:
"DO SOMETHING"
Northern Star was born that day.
Built by veterans, educators, criminologists, and mental health professionals, we don’t just respond to school violence — we work to stop it before it starts. Our evidence-based, community-first methodology addresses the root causes: the trauma, the isolation, the crisis points that precede every act of school violence.
School safety isn’t a metal detector problem. It’s a community problem — and it demands a community-based solution.
336 shooting incidents on K–12 school grounds in 2024
The second-highest number ever recorded. Any shooting is one too many.
K–12 School Shooting Database, Campus Safety Magazine (2025)
1 in 5 female high school students experienced sexual violence in the past year
Overall, 11% of all high school students were forced to do sexual things when they did not want to. Rates of forced sex and sexual violence were stable or worsening from 2021 to 2023.
CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2021); CDC YRBS Data Summary & Trends Report: 2013–2023 (2024)
Reported forcible sex offenses on school campuses nearly tripled in a decade
From 1.7 to 8.0 per 10,000 students between 2009 and 2019.
NCES Indicators of School Crime and Safety (2022)
19% of students ages 12–18 reported being bullied at school
Rising to 26% among middle schoolers. Cyberbullying hit 26.5% in the past 30 days — up from 16.7% in 2016.
NCES / Bureau of Justice Statistics, School Crime Supplement (2024); Patchin & Hinduja, Cyberbullying Research Center (2024)
92–100% of K–12 mass shooters exhibited suicidality
Over 80% showed a detectable crisis beforehand. This is not random. This is a pattern we can interrupt.
Peterson & Densley, NIJ-funded research, The Violence Project (2021)
Over two-thirds of school shooters had documented childhood trauma
Abuse, neglect, or severe bullying appears in the history of the vast majority of perpetrators.
Peterson & Densley, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (2024)
80% communicated their crisis to someone before acting
In nearly every case, there was an opportunity to intervene. The window exists. We need people trained to see it.
Peterson & Densley, The Violence Project (2021)
We’ve been working quietly. Now we’re building louder.
Northern Star provides FREE safety assessments, community and school emergency action plans, expert training to schools, teachers, educators, faith congregations, and communities across the country. No cost. No red tape. Just action.Join the coalition.
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