Safe Schools

Purpose:

To offer recommendations aimed at fostering schools as safe learning environments

Issue:

The public has and continues to view school safety as a critically important issue requiring the ongoing attention of school leaders and school staff. Teaching and learning best occur in a warm, inviting, safe, and orderly school setting. Schools should, at all times, be safe-havens for all students and staff, free from theft, threats, intimidation, bullying, weapons, drugs or violence of any type.

NASSP Guiding Principles:

• Schools, along with the community, have a shared responsibility to ensure that schools are safe and orderly.
• Students and educators have a right to attend schools that have a safe and orderly learning environment.
• The NASSP Breaking Ranks framework calls for a personalized learning environment as a condition for student engagement and achievement.

Recommendations for School Leaders:

1. School leaders should recognize that it is their responsibility to teach what they expect students to know and be able to do. Teaching appropriate behavior and deterring negative behavior is a responsibility of every staff member.

2. School leaders should create a personalized, warm, safe, orderly, and inviting school environment that includes an adult for every student and one that emphasizes the importance of relationships and shared responsibility for nurturing a healthy, positive school climate.

3. School leaders should develop a uniform code of student conduct that contains clear policies, which are developed with staff and community involvement, fairly and consistently administered, evaluated on a regular basis, and openly communicated to stakeholders. Furthermore, schools leaders should make a concerted effort to educate and inform students as to the specifics of the code of conduct, as well as expectations for appropriate behavior, and the logical consequences of their behavior.

4. School leadership teams should collect and compile data regarding safety-related incidents and regularly conduct school safety audits, share findings with staff, students, school partners and the community, and provide student and staff training for school safety.

5. Schools should develop and continually update emergency preparedness plans that include provisions for responses relating to acts of violence, internal and external threats, weapons and weapon possession.

6. Schools should implement prevention, intervention, apprehension and counseling programs to combat negative or violent behavior. This would include conflict resolution and peer mediation programs for both students and staff.

Recommendations for District Leaders

7. School districts should establish violence prevention curriculum, grades K-12.

8. School districts should promote collaboration to ensure continuity and consistent application of policies and practices.

9. School districts should partner with parents, law enforcement, public and private social service agencies, and other agencies to develop programs and services to foster caring schools and communities.

10. School districts should partner with the news media to ensure responsible reporting about school safety issues.

11. Principals’ ability to maintain a safe school climate should be as important as their ability to lead instruction and should be evaluated as such.

Recommendations for state and federal policymakers

12. Funding should be secured to deliver age-appropriate programs that align with the national Response to Intervention framework.

Recommendation for the media and the Federal Communications Commission

13. Advertisers should take responsible steps to present messages that encourage and promote responsible behavior.

14. The Federal Communications Commission should continue its efforts to monitor and provide oversight of broadcasters' programming during prime time and children's viewing hours.

Resources

Benbenishty R. Astor R. (2005). School violence in context: culture, neighborhood, family, school, and gender. Oxford University Press US, 2005

Blauvelt, P. (2000). Making Schools Safe for Students. Creating a Proactive School Safety Plan. Corwin Press.

Fein R., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W., Borum, R., Modzeleski, W., Reddy, M., (2002). Threat Assessment in Schools: A Guide to Managing Threatening Situations and to Creating Safe School Climates. U.S. Department of Education and from the Director, U.S. Secret Service.

GLSEN in Cooperation with NASSP (2008). The Principal's Perspective: School Safety, Bullying and Harassment. ollaboration with NASSP

GLSEN. (2007). National School Climate Survey. The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Youth in our Nation's Schools.

National Alliance for Safe Schools. http://www.safeschools.org

Neiman, S., Devoe, J. (2009). Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools, Findings from the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2007-08. American Institutes for Research. More resources from the U.S. Department of Education

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Approved February 3, 2000
Revised July 9, 2009