Education and Youth Safety

Our lab explores the profound connection between neighborhood safety and educational opportunity. A major focus of our work is the impact of gun violence on youth and how exposure to community violence affects student attendance, achievement, and mental health. We also examine disciplinary injustice in schools, particularly for Native American students and other marginalized groups, investigating how exclusionary discipline policies perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline.

Core Questions We Address

• How does exposure to neighborhood gun violence on routes to school impact academic performance and disciplinary outcomes?
• What are the spatial patterns of violence near schools, and how do they respond to policy changes like Safe Passage programs?
• How do structural inequities like exclusionary discipline and racial segregation interact with safe neighborhood conditions?
• What role does geospatial analysis play in understanding school safety and identifying high-risk corridors for students?

Methods and Approaches

We apply rigorous spatial and statistical techniques to understand the educational context:

• Acoustic Detection Sensors: Utilizing ShotSpotter data to capture precise, real-time incidents of gunfire that are often underreported in administrative crime data.
• Spatial Accessibility Analysis: Modeling the density of gun violence along student travel routes to identify high-risk corridors.
• Geospatial Machine Learning: Using AI to analyze the urban built environment and its relationship to school safety and student outcomes.
• Policy Evaluation: Assessing the effectiveness of Safe Passages interventions and reforms aimed at dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.

Select Publications

Gun Violence & School Safety

• Barboza-Salerno, G., Duhaney, S., & Yang, H. (2024). Spatial accessibility to gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school. SSM Population Health, Vol. 28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2024.101730

• Barboza-Salerno, G., Meshelemiah, J.C.A (2023). Gun Violence on Walkable Routes to and from School: Recommendations for Policy and Practice. Journal of Urban Health, Vol. 100, Issue 6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-023-00802-2

  Featured: National Criminal Justice Association write-up on acoustic sensors detecting gunfire near schools

  Manuscripts Under Review

• Watson-Grace, A., Yang, H., & Barboza-Salerno, G. Harsher punishments, lesser infractions: Disciplinary injustice for Native American students in New Mexico public schools. Submitted to AERA Open.

  Policy Briefs & Reports

• Barboza-Salerno, G. (2025). Historical Discipline in Colorado School Districts. ISSUESLAB.

  Upcoming Presentations

• Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), January 2026: Geospatial Analysis of School Safety and Student Outcomes

  Related Resources

• View all publications

• CourtListener Tutorial for Analyzing Caselaw

• GitHub Repository