Why this is important now: The 2021-22 school year ended with heightened concerns about the safety of children in schools after the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas. One recent poll, showed parents ranking gun violence as the most serious threat to their children and schools. Students who are stressed or preoccupied with the possibility of violence and harm cannot achieve to their fullest academic potential.
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School Safety, Like Student Success, is a Shared Responsibility
that Depends on Strong Relationships
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While research indicates children are more likely to be victims of violence outside of schools, recent incidents are considered high-profile acts of violence and have led school districts to implement safety measures which would have been unimaginable in previous years.
A key theme we find around school safety is that this responsibility falls primarily on school principals. Although these site administrators do play a key role in developing and executing plans, more important to enhancing safety is the building of relationships between school staff, students, parents, community, and government agencies. The knee-jerk reaction most often seen following a school shooting — closing off access to campuses and turning the sites into virtual fortresses by increasing the number of police officers, fences, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, and active-shooter drills — is widespread, but what remains unclear is whether any of these measures are effective at stopping school shootings.
At PON, we believe those are superficial, ineffective attempts to fix deeper societal problems related to an individual propensity toward violence and access to guns. Further, sending kids to environments that feel more like prisons than schools send the wrong message to them and us as parents.
As the 2022-23 school year begins, we highlight five strategies and recommendations to increase school safety and share the responsibility of campus security with parents and the school community this year.
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5 Strategies and Recommendations to
Foster Partnerships with Parents for School Safety
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1 Ensure that required Comprehensive School Safety Plans (CSSP) are in place, updated, and visible on the website of each school. We reviewed websites of seven school districts in Southern California, and only four had this information posted online.
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Recommendations:
- Invite broader parent and community input on the CSSPs and ensure these documents are accessible to parents in all relevant home languages.
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Get familiar with new laws passed this summer, SB 906 and AB 452, which require notifying parents of safe storage of firearms, reporting threats of violence to law enforcement and providing updates on the investigations that follow.
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Go beyond compliance and host dialogues and workshops for parents and the school community about the changes in the law.
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2 Strengthen communication and relationships between students, families, community members, school staff and local law enforcement. Relationships build trust and improve two-way communication between individuals, which is key when the time comes to reporting and responding to suspicious behaviors.
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Recommendations:
- Host forums or Cafés with the School Safety Team to bring together police, school board members, teachers, principals, community members, and anyone interested in improving safety.
- Speak with students in a small group setting “to answer students’ questions regarding school safety.”
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3 Collaborate and partner with families and community to create safer schools and communities.
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We strongly recommend taking highly visible steps by welcoming back campus volunteers, reopening parent centers, and resuming in-person parent workshops, school council and committee meetings, and classroom observations district-wide.
Currently, school districts across California are deferring the decision on reopening campuses for these activities to individual principals. So, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has largely subsided, many principals are using their discretion to limit access to in-person activities, even when infection rates are low, masks are not required, and parents produce vaccine records or negative COVID-19 test results. It is difficult to achieve collaborative partnerships without first establishing positive relationships.
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4 Maximize the use of parent volunteers to increase student supervision at schools, particularly on understaffed campuses or when increased safety concerns are present.
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Learn about Dads on Duty in Louisiana a group of fathers concerned about the bullying and violence that was taking place in their neighborhood high school who organized to have a presence at the school. Each morning these fathers stand at the main entrance to greet students and provide encouragement. They also help by monitoring activities during the school day. The presence of these fathers has been shown to positively influence students, with incidents of aggressive behavior, bullying, and fights decreasing significantly. The practice is catching on! Now there are Dads on Duty in Odessa, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Belgrade Schools, Montana; and Casa Grande, Arizona.
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5 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Let's invest time and resources in mental health and holistic character education but we must always include parents in these kinds of initiatives to achieve the desired results.
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A. Mental Health
“Provide adequate staffing (such as counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers) of coordinated school- and community-based mental health services for individuals with risk factors for violence, recognizing that violence is not intrinsically a product of mental illness.” Given there is currently a much greater demand for services than professionals available, consider the following resources:
The LA County Department of Mental Health provides programs and classes in conjunction with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). NAMI Urban LA offers educational programs and support groups for individuals and family members of those living with mental illness.
- https://www.namiglac.org/
- https://dmh.lacounty.gov/our-services/children/
- LA County Mental Health Support Groups for adults facilitated in Spanish
"Character development involves attaining the feelings, thoughts, and skills needed to act coherently across time and place to serve self and others in mutually beneficial, positive ways."1 "Studies show that character education not only impacts school culture and security, but can also have a positive impact on attendance, academic achievement, and discipline referrals."2
Universal virtues often included in these programs include wisdom, fortitude, love, respect, caring, justice or fairness, gratitude, positive attitude, hard work, responsibility, self-control, integrity, humility, citizenship.
Some key concepts to effective implementation of character programs include having mentors and models, embedding the virtues throughout the curriculum, including skill-building opportunities, and getting buy-in and fostering ownership by students, parents, and the community at large.
Sources:
- Perceived Impact of a Character Education Program at a Midwest Rural Middle School: A Case Study
- Character development among youth: Linking lives in time and place
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"There is no way around it. The answer is very clear. To improve school safety and student success, educators must team up with parents, community based organizations, and other agencies." Araceli Simeón, Executive Director
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Thanks to Dr. Corina Espinoza for leading the research for this newsletter and PON parents for all their input and edits throughout the planning and development process.
Funding for this publication was provided through the generous support of The California Endowment.
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