WESTMINSTER WEST — For the past decade or more, issues of school safety have been front and center in schools and communities across the country.
The tragedy and injustice of bullying is finally becoming clear to educators, parents, and state leaders. Up to three-quarters of all students report being exposed to bullies in school.
While new anti-bullying policies and zero-tolerance disciplinary models might be a welcome attempt to ensure that adults begin to more fully address the suffering and humiliation imposed by bullies, they will not solve these complex problems.
Safety plans, lockdown drills, and evacuation plans have been created, and we have seen how these school safety measures can be effective tools for saving lives.
But no school safety plan alone will ensure that a school is completely physically and emotionally safe.
We know that all too often such initiatives in our schools fail to address deeper, more systemic problems.
The issue facing schools today is not simply a problem of bad kids. Rather, the fundamental problem in schools relates to the overall school climate that encompasses the whole relationship of students and adults to school and learning.
Safer, more respectful schools are not simply places with more rules, harsher penalties for violators, and kids doing just as they are told. And of course, rules are important.
But schools that empower students and partner with them to define, assess, and implement what we refer to as “respectful school practices” are those that achieve real results for school climate and learning.
In such schools, a purposeful vision and systemic mission link positive school climate and learning. Teachers and students are partners in creating a school culture that values each individual, engages all in learning, and actively supports the success of every member of the community.
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There is no shortage of challenges in schools (or anywhere you put hundreds or thousands of people together day after day, year after year) and the good intentions to improve schools.
And for every problem, schools offer a well-intended solution, usually involving some new program or policy or staff position: bullying prevention programs, school security officers, test preparation programs, diversity training, dropout prevention, lunchroom monitors, curriculum mapping, reading specialists, curriculum consultants - the list goes on.
But like the carnival game of Whac-a-Mole, when a problem is pushed down in one place, a new problem seems to jump up somewhere else.
This common and never-ending strategy of identifying individual problems to solve one at a time, exerting our best efforts as wise and experienced adults, hasn't, as yet, eradicated problems in schools.
In fact, our concerted efforts to raise test scores might be exacerbating other problems: narrowing the curriculum, sapping the joy of learning, ignoring developmental needs, lessening time for physical activity, pushing out struggling students, and raising stress levels for teachers and students.
This approach to using “expert” (read adult) knowledge to try to solve school problems ignores what we know about human nature and change.
We've found that reform imposed from above rarely sticks. Adults and students often share similar desires for their school; everyone - adults and students - must be an active agent of fairness, social justice, and change. Students, especially in middle and high school, don't suddenly become academic stars and angelic community members just because adults tell them they are supposed to.
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Change does not happen from the outside; change is not something that can be imposed on people.
In human institutions such as schools, lasting and meaningful change must come from within the school, employing the primary resource schools have: the energy, ideas, expertise, and good will of every individual in the school community.
In fact, the only way to get sustained improvement in academic achievement is by improving school climate and culture for faculty and students in the school.
Unless students feel safe at school, feel a sense of belonging, and feel valued in the learning process, it is unlikely that students will perform anywhere close to their potential.
For too long, schools have separated issues related to academic results from those tied to school violence, student relations, and respect.
These issues are inextricably linked. If you improve respect in schools, then you improve learning. Without respectful and safe schools, the learning environment is compromised.
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Respectful schools incorporate student and adult perspectives and provide new leadership roles for teams of diverse students to serve as partners in school reform.
Local teachers, leaders, parents, community members, and students can articulate their problems and the solutions that they then embrace.
They can create a positive school climate by giving focused attention to the social and emotional well being of every child (and adult), actively valuing each individual, and looking for ways to include all voices in the success of the school.
The interaction of positive school climate, student engagement, respectful relationships, empowerment, and learning produces fewer discipline problems, improves student motivation, and increases student academic performance.
It's the only way to achieve and sustain strong academic results.