During the past decade, school safety has been at the forefront of many school districts safety polices and plans. With recent high profile school shootings, the question school districts continue to ask is how do we keep our schools safe? Administrators face heavy scrutiny when weighing approaches to school safety and student discipline. Likewise, school employees have the right to work in safe environments devoid of life-threatening behaviors (Fenning and Bohanon, 2006; Skiba and Rausch, 2006). America’s founding fathers understood the importance of a public school education. They believed educating its citizens would allow them the opportunity to learn new skills while becoming successful and productive people in society. However, our founding fathers did not predict the severe behavior changes our schools face in educating disruptive and dangerous students. America’s school districts are charged with providing solutions for disruptive and dangerous students (Fenning and Bohanon, 2006; Skiba and Rausch, 2006). School officials must address these issues with research-based interventions and collaborative resources that provide a safe learning environment for all stakeholders (Elliott and Mihalic, 2004; Schoenwald and Hoagwood, 2001). Boards of education continue to support school efforts to rethink best practices for disciplinary alternative middle schools (DAMS). Many school districts focus on research-based interventions and resources that manage aggression and
Violence in society is increasing dramatically and not only is it out in the streets, but it’s in the school systems as well. However, school violence has been becoming more and more of a problem all over the nation in the past several years. School violence needs to stop because no one should be afraid to go to school without feeling like it’ll be their last day.
After the Sandy Hook, there were countless ways for students to be safe at school. In Preparing for the Unthinkable: School Safety after Sandy Hook news article, Vicki Bauman said, “ Instead of gates, guns, and metal detectors, let’s invest in the things we know will make us safer: counselors, health care, teaching positive behavior, and making sure we have services to reach out to disconnected youth and pull them back on track.” Therefore, violence is not the answer to any question or issue. The community and school system should take a stand and get the necessities that the schools need to have a safe environment for the students and faculty and staff. The school can invest in law enforcement. The law enforcement will be able to conduct a consistent search through a metal detector. The law enforcement will help the students to avoid bringing prohibited weapons to school as well as, there to protect the school.
The intention of this paper is to look at and present some issues and strategies that members of a school community think about when trying to create safer schools. Particularly when addressing an active shooter in a school setting. A major issue to consider when trying to keep all schools safe, is the simple fact that no two schools are the same. Understanding this can lead us to the conclusion that it is impossible to have one global plan or program that can be 100% effective in all schools. “Violence prevention programs work best when they incorporate multiple strategies and address the full range of possible acts of violence in schools. For any set of policies to work, it must be established and
Since the establishment of public education in the United States, schools have provided a sense of security and belonging to their students. Although sitting through lectures and doing homework may not be the most exciting thing in the world, students will always have a lunch to eat, a roof over their head, and a supportive teacher or counselor that they can talk to. Despite the “safe” environment and presence of authoritative figures on school campuses, trouble always finds a way to break out. Simple misbehaving and occasional fights are a common occurrence on most school campuses, however a new breed of troublesome and violent students has hatched. The
Through my teaching experience I have found that school violence encompasses many forms such as verbal harassment, non-verbal harassment, cyber-bullying, intimidation and any act that devalues a student’s self-worth. According to Detroit Public Schools, “it is the intention of the District to provide as safe and nonviolent learning environment for its employees, students, parents, and visitors as is possible. To this end, the District strives to maintain an environment free of threats, harassment, intimidation, physical and verbal abuse, and coercion” (Detroit Public Schools, 2009). The purpose of this policy is create a safe environment where students are free from any tape of harassment. The policy goes on to state it is the staff's responsibility to, “be educated and aware of potential signs and signals of violent or threatening behavior in students”(Detroit Public Schools, 2009). In other words, it is necessary for the school staff to remain vigilant of these signs and address them as soon as appear. Based off the nature of the action the school will follow a course of discipline suited to the accused
There were over 200 school shootings in America from 2013 to 2015 — an average of nearly one a week. In all, these incidents resulted in 59 deaths and 124 non-fatal gunshot injuries. A staggering statistic considering that protecting children at schools has been and will be one of the top priorities for all Americans. Americans disagree on many topics and have diverse social and economic beliefs , but we all agree on providing safe and secure learning environments for our students. Government officials and school administrators face substantial altercations balancing parents’ expectations on keeping the students safe, and understanding the best available solutions with limited funding. These
These principals were asked to list what they considered serious or moderate problems in their schools. The most frequently cited problems at all levels were the less violent behaviors such as tardiness (40%), absenteeism (25%), and physical conflicts between students (21%). The NCES report found that violent crimes occurred at an annual rate of only 53 per 100,000 students. The critical incidents that are typically the focus of school safety debates were reported to be at least "a moderate problem”: drug use (9%), gangs (5%), possession of weapons (2%), and physical abuse of teachers (2%). The continued use of this of this policy is mainly due to the perception of violence in schools continually being exacerbated by extended media coverage when isolated events of school violence occur according to Martinez
School violence can be prevented by parents, communities, teachers, and even classmates can help reduce violence and improve the overall school environment, Also, education and consequences must occur in the home by parents and educators to effectively help reduce school and youth violence. This strategy stands in contrast to use prevention strategies, such as metal detectors and other security measures to help determine benefits and evidence that may offer knowledge and experience in preventing school violence that can enhance approaches to end school
School shootings have generated great public concern and fostered a widespread impression that schools are unsafe for many students; this article counters those misapprehensions by examining empirical evidence of school and community violence trends and reviewing evidence on best practices for preventing school shootings. Many of the school safety and security measures deployed in response to school shootings have little research support, and strategies such as zero-tolerance discipline and student profiling have been widely criticized as unsound practices. Threat assessment is identified as a promising strategy for violence prevention that merits further study. The article concludes with an overview of the need for schools to develop crisis response plans to prepare for and mitigate such rare events.
I answer that, the growing concerns about school safety has been around since the 1990s. The United States Congress and many state legislatures passed laws that allowed school districts to implement harsh disciplinary policies.For example expulsion and out-of-school suspensions were implemented in order to help reduce incidents of students bringing guns and other weapons to school(mental health).The zero tolerance policy is “intended to deter misbehavior by maintaining clearly defined and uniformly applied rules”(School Safety, 2016). But the school districts and schools have expanded the zero tolerance policies to include various non-violent acts. The policies often use vague words like, “threats,” “violence,” “weapons,” and “drugs”. Allowing the administration to subjectively decide if the act of the student is deemed threatening or not is not a way to effectively decrease the incidents of students bringing weapons to school. Jacob Kang-Brown, a research associate at the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera
School violence has become of the most pressing educational problems in the United States. Gang violence and high profile shootings across the nation cause concern within schools. Communities struggle to understand why these events take place and how they can be prevented. The overwhelming response to solve the issue of violence in schools is the increasing societal pressure to execute zero tolerance. Zero tolerance is driven by the educational philosophy, policies, and practices of school communities. Stakeholders expect schools to be a safe place for staff and for students. Stakeholders assume that a positive classroom environment, safe students, and school enjoyment are conditions necessary to create a positive climate where learning takes place. This assumption can be backed with research. A calm classroom environment, teachers’ management of disruptive behavior, and students’ view of school safety are factors that have been found to directly correlate with student achievement in the classroom (Ma & Willms, 2004). Safety and a feeling of not being threatened during school hours have been found to be important to students’ achievement. Failure to remove a disruptive or an unruly student from school has been found to have a negative impact on achievement and creates a great risk to school staff and students (Garbarino et al., 1992). Teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn in an
With the technological advances of modern society, we now have more opportunities than ever to promote safety. The i>Click to Safety device was inspired by the growing concern of public safety for school children. The FBI has confirmed a sharp rise in mass shootings since 2000, leaving parents and school faculty desperate for solutions. Law enforcement is often required to stop mass shootings, especially in places such as schools where individuals have no tools of self-defense at their disposal. A quick response is crucial to ensure that lives are saved in these unimaginable acts of terror. The objective of this project is to develop the i>Click to Safety human-machine system to enable the ability to save lives in the hands of
Violence in our schools is an issue that has become more prominent in the last few years. News articles about violent deeds within the school setting are on the increase. Our society demands that schools are safe for our children. In order to maintain a peaceful environment for all, we must address and inform our schools, children, and parents as well as the neighboring communities about the issue of school violence. As David W. Johnson, the author of Reducing School Violence states, “To eliminate violence and resolve destructive conflicts, schools must first admit that such conflicts are out of control.” (Johnson 7) Schools in general must identify with these issues in order to deal with them.
School violence, in recent history, seems to have taken the United States by storm. Be it a shooting, such as the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, the inappropriate relationships between teacher and student, such as Stephanie Figueroa whom initiated one such relationship with her 11-year-old karate student, or the multiple fights we see on social media that take place in schools. With each passing week, we see a new story that falls in one of these categories. Today, we look at the types of, causes of and how to prevent violence in what should be a safe place and second home for our youth.
Are you really safe in school if there isn’t any cameras in the classrooms or the whole campus? Schools should be safe and should be monitored at all times to make sure all students are fine and so teachers can be monitored to see if there actually teaching not just sitting there and giving page numbers. So believe me when I say that cameras are a necessity in classrooms and the whole campus for students safety and their academic.