Incidents at Littleton, Colorado, Pearl, Mississippi, West Paducah, Kentucky, and other locales around the nation have produced much understandable angst about school safety. Random gun violence is not the only factor causing the lack of safety in United State’s schools. The full spectrum of safety issues includes discrimination and violence base on ethnicity, race, economic class, gender, sexual orientation, race, age, handicapping conditions, and national origin. Perpetrators are students, faculty, administration, staff, parents and even the community in which the school finds itself.

In our quest to make schools safe, we need to consider what constitutes a safe school. Some believe that safe schools are those which involve students and faculty, administration and staff, parents and community in a discussion of the issues, develops a democratically constructed plan for dealing with the issues, and assigns broad based responsibility for implementation of that plan.

From educational psychology we find the idea that stopping a behavior from occurring is only half the battle. To complete the task of stopping discrimination and violence perpetrators must learn replacement behaviors. Students, teachers and other must exhibit behaviors of caring, understanding, support, compassion, encouragement, and acclaim for success in place of taunting, physical violence, shunning, teasing, making fun of, bullying, and other behaviors that perpetrate a lack of safety in the school environment.

Lessons for the requisite learning can be carried out in part in the classroom be teachers who have been sensitized to the issues of safety and who have been educated about discrimination and best practices to teach the alternative behaviors.

But the teachers are not solely responsible for the task of behavioral change. Students bare the responsibility as well both as individuals and as groups. Student Councils, athletic teams, musical groups, clubs, and other student organizations can and should be educated about the issues and held responsible for learning acceptable behavior and exhibiting it in their endeavors.

It goes without saying that administrators, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, parent and the community should be involved as learners, teachers, and models of behaviors which exact feelings of physical and emotional safety rather than fear and apprehension. Who among us did not know a custodian along the way with whom we had long conversations and who helped us feel good about ourselves as kids? The above is based on the ounce of prevention theory.

The reaction to gun violence has been to use what will be referred to here as the Law and Order approach to school safety the pound of prevention theory. Metal detectors, security guards, locked doors and windows, shake downs, surveillance cameras, body searches, drug sniffing dogs, locker searches are all a part of the Law and Order approach. In addition, the model requires such consequences as suspension, expulsion, assignment to alternative schools, and in some cases incarceration.

An outgrowth of the problems of safety and use of the Law and Order approach is zero tolerance which sometimes makes school administrators look silly, even stupid. A case in point was the student who was expelled because he has a pocket knife that was needed for his scout meeting after school. A prudent thing to go in that case was to keep the knife until after school so the boy could remain in classes and participate fully in his troop meeting. Instead he missed ten days of instruction. Another boy at a different school was given ten days because his mother packed a plastic picnic type dinner knife in his lunch so he could cut his food. Do we expect students to feel safe when zero tolerance negates justice for the accused?

Again if we want the behavior to change we must realize that this approach only reduces unwanted behaviors, it does not teach acceptable behaviors. Although the method does afford safety, there are some drawbacks. Probably the most notable is the cost to already overburdened school budgets. This too is a problem of the learning model discussed above. Other drawbacks are the psychological impacts of being in a highly restricted environment and some allege it adds to the post traumatic disorders suffered by students who have witnessed the violence first hand. Apprehension among students and faculty and lower morale are possible outcomes of the restrictions.

Law and Order approaches may be necessary but they will only work if accompanied be a program to teach everyone involved in schooling the attitudes, values, and behaviors which support a safe school. The processes necessary for the success of safety in school must be democratically arrived at and democratically implemented. All discussions must include students who attend the school and they must be listened to not trotted out for inclusion in the discussions and ignored later. The population most affected by unsafe schools probably has greater insight into the problems and their solutions.

What skills can be taught to the aforementioned groups which would aid in creating the safe school? Certainly conflict management, anger management, methods of reducing stress, peer counseling, are among those skill building approaches necessary for the school community. Lest we forget such programs must be extended to the parents and the community as well.

How does a school community deal with the code of silence present among students and others as well? Certainly some of the gun violence incidences could have been halted if students who knew would have informed authorities. Base on the thinking of some in developmental psychology and in cognitive moral development we might conclude that the development of the idea of civic duty empathy, and altruism that might lead to the need o f alert authority of the potential misdeeds of peers, how to deal with such real life dilemmas related to acceptance of peers and protections of the community is not fully present in most people until late teens and early twenties. Witness the behavior of teens behind the wheel or at parties.

Such behaviors as the willingness to testify against peers will most probably occur if the school or life experiences are present which demand consideration of principled behaviors. What can the school do to hasten such development? Certainly it will not happen without some consideration of how humans develop moral behaviors and to implement instruction which will bring about such development. Such instruction can occur in classrooms or within other structures in the school and should not be limited to students. This form of learning can be a natural outgrowth of social studies but can initiated in science around discussions of issues such as the environment or in literature which if ride with humans facing dilemmas which focus on civic duty or moral behavior. Imagine a discussion of principled behavior based on cognitive moral development techniques focused on the code of silence and conducted in student council, at a faculty meeting, or as a part of the football program.

Taylor and Moisha overhear other students talking about two boys from school planning to bring guns to school and shoot a particular student. Should they tell the principal? Based on the theory, exposition of principled beliefs in discussion settings with ones peers on why you should expose the plot to kill will have an affect on students who have never considered such behaviors. There are other dilemmas related to school safety which do not focus on life and death occurrences. Cheating harassment by faculty as well as students, bullying, and other forms of physical violence are subjects for consideration. Truth be told students often know about faculty members who attempt to or have sexual relations with students. Admittedly there are times when students have made up the issue to “get” faculty members they dislike. But there are many instances where that is not the case.

As a post script, moral behavior as used in this context may find its roots in religion but here it means behaviors which are right for the care and maintenance of a democratic, humanistic, safe life regardless of origin.

We need also consider the physical environment of schools. Unfortunately most of the nation’s schools are old and in some cases should not be used to house students due to lack of safety features. What can be done despite the age of schools? Paint, maintenance, remodeling, cleaning, interesting bulletin boards, displays touting the contributions of ember of the staff, custodians, or displays of their interest or hobbies may make the school feel more interesting and humane. In the building of new schools architects should confer with all the residents who will use the facility regarding such concerns as safety.

As with the Law and Order approach, the learning method will eat into time for instruction. Schools must consider ways to lessen the impact of teaching the behaviors needed for safe schools on academic instruction. Would we be willing to add time to the school day? Another consideration is class size. Can a safe school exist when there are classes of thirty or more students?

What would happen to an atmosphere of safety if policies affecting attendance, grading, promotion, and discipline were democratically arrived at? Students having an input, students being listened to and seeing their ideas become a part of policy ought to provide a sense of belonging, of being cared about.

Of course all of the discussions, all of the policy changes, all of the training and learning needed to implement a safe environment must be communicated to all of the stakeholders.

The development of a safe school takes time. Safe schools depend on all stakeholders. Safe schools must provide change agents which include everyone in the school and the community that surrounds it. Everyone must be listened to. Each child needs at least one adult in the school setting with whom he or she can develop a trust level for airing concerns knowing they will be held in confidence.

Sources consulted:

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Creating Safe Schools. http://www.nwrel.org

Creating a Safe and Connected School Climate. U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secret Service. http://www.creatingsaveschools.gov

Murray, Phyllis C. Are We Creating Emotionally Safe Schools? http://www.mountkisco.americantowns.com