The best thing that we can do to create safe schools is to focus on fostering supportive and positive school climates, where students have the services and resources they need. "School Climate" describes the quality of a school's environment—how students, educators, staff, and caregivers feel about safety, school values, and supports on their campus. When students feel comfortable talking to adults, when they can access counselors, social workers, and other support systems, and when they are taught to resolve conflict and build healthy relationships, the entire campus will be safer. Research-based programs like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, Social-Emotional Learning, and Restorative Practices can help to set school-wide norms and create safe, supportive campuses.
CREATING POSITIVE SCHOOL CLIMATES AND BUILDING STRONG RELATIONSHIPS IN SCHOOLS
The Secret Service and the Department of Education released recommendations for keeping schools safe and creating positive school climates in a 2002 report. In addition to using a threat assessment system, which evaluates student behavior in order to ensure an appropriate and proportional response to threats, the recommendations stress the importance of creating positive school climates, built on trusting relationships. The report lists the major components and tasks for creating safe and connected school climates:
- Assess the school's emotional climate
- Emphasize the importance of listening in schools
- Take a strong, but caring stance against the code of silence (in order to encourage students to speak up if they need help)
- Work actively to change the perception that talking to an adult about a student contemplating violence is considered "snitching"
- Find ways to stop bullying
- Empower students by involving them in planning, creating, and sustaining a school culture of safety and respect
- Ensure that every student feels that he or she has a trusting relationship with at least one adult at school
- Create mechanisms for developing and sustaining safe school climates
- Be aware of physical environments and their effects on creating comfort zones
- Emphasize an integrated systems model (bring all stakeholders to the table to discuss how to create positive school climates)
- Ensure community buy-in and support from school leadership because all climates of safety ultimately are "local"
It is important to note that creating positive school climates must be combined with other reforms and policies that address the accessibility of weapons, mental health issues, and responses to threats of violence in meaningful ways. In July 2018, the Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an update of the original school safety report, which re-emphasizes the important of building strong campus cliamtes. A summary of the report can be found here.
For great information and practical tools, check out this Restorative Practices Guide and Toolkit from the Chicago Public Schools Office of Social and Emotional Learning!
