Improvement Safe Schools Cap 5
Content
Improvement Safe Schools
Teenagers are violent for different reasons. Many teenagers turn to violence as a way of manipulating their environment, particularly at school. Peer pressure can cause an otherwise calm teenager to become the aggressor in a violent situation. Violence can also be the result of extreme frustration; teenagers are often unable to express themselves in a calm manner. Unfortunately, violence may be used as a channel for their anger. Retaliation may cause the recipient of an act of violence to strike back against the original aggressor. Feelings of hurt and anger, when linked with the desire to get even, can have potentially devastating consequences for all involved. Teenage violence often occurs as a result of learned behavior. Many of those who commit acts of school violence have witnessed adults behaving in a similar way, or have been the victims of abuse. Other factors could include: experiences that result in feelings of humiliation and loss availability of weapons in the home being involved in a cult or gang using alcohol or drugs suffering from psychological illnesses such as depression or psychosis a predisposition towards suicidal behavior. Violent tragedies and numerous threats in schools have showed that: the violent incident could happen in the school area because school violence is not only restricted by economic or geographic status; each school could be vulnerable and they must be prepared to prevent this. Another point is that, there are no quick-fix solutions for school violence.The suspension and expulsion is not the best solution for a child, there can be developed many alternatives to keep the student in school. The problems of disruptive and violent youth are often highly complex, cutting across school, family, and the community. Thus, for the most severe cases, it is critical that child serving agencies—education, mental health, welfare, and law enforcement— act in concert. Recently, interagency approaches such as a complex team (formed by representatives from local authority, school board , parents) have become more widely used, increasing the
communication and collaboration of child-serving agencies, and allowing them to develop comprehensive community based plans for disruptive youth and their families. Developing safe and responsive schools impetuous requires a close collaboration between schools, agencies, parents, and students themselves. Similarly, involving parents in all stages of planning and response to school violence will vastly increase the resources available to schools, and increase the consistency of interventions across home and school. Early intervention seeks to decrease the possibility of violence by creating a positive school climate, and by reconnecting those students most at-risk for committing violent acts, and by an array of effective consequences scaled to the severity of the offense. Finally, it is critical that students be provided with opportunities to contribute to dialogue and planning for safe and responsive schools requires a comprehensive and longterm planning process, an array of effective strategies, and a partnership of school, family, and community. A totally guarantee that a school will not experience serious disruption or violence, even with an extensive plan cannot be done by anyone. Yet in the face of deadly violence that could threaten school and community at any time, there are some alternatives through directing and doing safe plans into preventive planning that they can increase the probability that schools will be safe and violence-free. Schools are confronted with a host of complicated problems, such as ensuring safety and ameliorating learning, behavior, and emotional problems. Viewed individually, such problems are challenging; together they can be overwhelming. Given that many problems experienced by students arise from the same underlying causes, it makes sense not to consider each one separately. Indeed, various policy and practice analyses indicate that it is untenable to do so. If schools are to be good and safe places, the agenda for school safety must be combined with other efforts to address the variety of factors that interfere with a school accomplishing its mission. And, all such efforts must be embedded in the larger agenda for school improvement. The intention is to prevent and minimize as many interfering factors as possible and maximize engagement and re-engagement in productive learning. And, this is to be done in ways that produce a safe, healthful, nurturing environment/culture characterized by respect for differences, trust, caring, support, and high expectations.The aim is to enable all students to have an equal opportunity to succeed at school by both addressing barriers to learning and reengaging students in classroom instruction. It is from such a component that, over time, a safe and caring school climate emerges. Most schools and communities have some programs and services that fit along the entire continuum
School improvement policy must be expanded to support development of a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive approach to addressing barriers to learning and teaching. What is needed is a fundamental transformation of how schools, families, and communities address not only safety, but other major barriers to learning and teaching. Such a transformation is essential to reducing bullying and violence, enhancing achievement for all and closing the achievement gap, reducing dropouts, and increasing the opportunity for schools to be valued as treasures in their neighborhood. Given the current state of school resources, the transformation must be accomplished by rethinking and redeploying how existing resources are used and by taking advantage of the natural opportunities at schools for countering learning, behavior, and emotional problems and promoting personal and social growth. Everyschool is neccesarrly to commit to fostering staff and student resilience and creating an atmosphere that encourages mutual support, caring, and sense of community. Staff and students need to feel good about themselves if they are to cope with challenges proactively and effectively. School-wide strategies for welcoming and supporting staff, students, and families at school every day are part of creating a safe and healthy school – one where staff, students, and families interact positively and identify with the school and its goals The well-being of youngsters, their families, schools, and neighborhoods depends on the development of a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive system for addressing interfering factors and promoting well-being. Accomplishing all this requires weaving together existing school, family, and community resources and fully integrating development of a comprehensive intervention approach into school improvement planning. All this, of course, involves major systemic changes. Such changes require weaving school owned resources and community owned resources together over time at every school in a district and addressing the complications stemming from the scale of public education in the U.S.( The 2007 National Conference on Safe
Schools 7533SAFE SCHOOLS IN THE CONTEXT OF SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT byHoward S. Adelman, Ph.D. a Linda Taylor, Ph.D. )
Teenagers are violent for different reasons. Many teenagers turn to violence as a way of manipulating their environment, particularly at school. Peer pressure can cause an otherwise calm teenager to become the aggressor in a violent situation. Violence can also be the result of extreme frustration; teenagers are often unable to express themselves in a calm manner. Unfortunately, violence may be used as a channel for their anger. Retaliation may cause the recipient of an act of violence to strike back against the original aggressor. Feelings of hurt and anger, when linked with the desire to get even, can have potentially devastating consequences for all involved. Teenage violence often occurs as a result of learned behavior. Many of those who commit acts of school violence have witnessed adults behaving in a similar way, or have been the victims of abuse. Other factors could include: experiences that result in feelings of humiliation and loss availability of weapons in the home being involved in a cult or gang using alcohol or drugs suffering from psychological illnesses such as depression or psychosis a predisposition towards suicidal behavior. Violent tragedies and numerous threats in schools have showed that: the violent incident could happen in the school area because school violence is not only restricted by economic or geographic status; each school could be vulnerable and they must be prepared to prevent this. Another point is that, there are no quick-fix solutions for school violence.The suspension and expulsion is not the best solution for a child, there can be developed many alternatives to keep the student in school. The problems of disruptive and violent youth are often highly complex, cutting across school, family, and the community. Thus, for the most severe cases, it is critical that child serving agencies—education, mental health, welfare, and law enforcement— act in concert. Recently, interagency approaches such as a complex team (formed by representatives from local authority, school board , parents) have become more widely used, increasing the
communication and collaboration of child-serving agencies, and allowing them to develop comprehensive community based plans for disruptive youth and their families. Developing safe and responsive schools impetuous requires a close collaboration between schools, agencies, parents, and students themselves. Similarly, involving parents in all stages of planning and response to school violence will vastly increase the resources available to schools, and increase the consistency of interventions across home and school. Early intervention seeks to decrease the possibility of violence by creating a positive school climate, and by reconnecting those students most at-risk for committing violent acts, and by an array of effective consequences scaled to the severity of the offense. Finally, it is critical that students be provided with opportunities to contribute to dialogue and planning for safe and responsive schools requires a comprehensive and longterm planning process, an array of effective strategies, and a partnership of school, family, and community. A totally guarantee that a school will not experience serious disruption or violence, even with an extensive plan cannot be done by anyone. Yet in the face of deadly violence that could threaten school and community at any time, there are some alternatives through directing and doing safe plans into preventive planning that they can increase the probability that schools will be safe and violence-free. Schools are confronted with a host of complicated problems, such as ensuring safety and ameliorating learning, behavior, and emotional problems. Viewed individually, such problems are challenging; together they can be overwhelming. Given that many problems experienced by students arise from the same underlying causes, it makes sense not to consider each one separately. Indeed, various policy and practice analyses indicate that it is untenable to do so. If schools are to be good and safe places, the agenda for school safety must be combined with other efforts to address the variety of factors that interfere with a school accomplishing its mission. And, all such efforts must be embedded in the larger agenda for school improvement. The intention is to prevent and minimize as many interfering factors as possible and maximize engagement and re-engagement in productive learning. And, this is to be done in ways that produce a safe, healthful, nurturing environment/culture characterized by respect for differences, trust, caring, support, and high expectations.The aim is to enable all students to have an equal opportunity to succeed at school by both addressing barriers to learning and reengaging students in classroom instruction. It is from such a component that, over time, a safe and caring school climate emerges. Most schools and communities have some programs and services that fit along the entire continuum
School improvement policy must be expanded to support development of a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive approach to addressing barriers to learning and teaching. What is needed is a fundamental transformation of how schools, families, and communities address not only safety, but other major barriers to learning and teaching. Such a transformation is essential to reducing bullying and violence, enhancing achievement for all and closing the achievement gap, reducing dropouts, and increasing the opportunity for schools to be valued as treasures in their neighborhood. Given the current state of school resources, the transformation must be accomplished by rethinking and redeploying how existing resources are used and by taking advantage of the natural opportunities at schools for countering learning, behavior, and emotional problems and promoting personal and social growth. Everyschool is neccesarrly to commit to fostering staff and student resilience and creating an atmosphere that encourages mutual support, caring, and sense of community. Staff and students need to feel good about themselves if they are to cope with challenges proactively and effectively. School-wide strategies for welcoming and supporting staff, students, and families at school every day are part of creating a safe and healthy school – one where staff, students, and families interact positively and identify with the school and its goals The well-being of youngsters, their families, schools, and neighborhoods depends on the development of a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive system for addressing interfering factors and promoting well-being. Accomplishing all this requires weaving together existing school, family, and community resources and fully integrating development of a comprehensive intervention approach into school improvement planning. All this, of course, involves major systemic changes. Such changes require weaving school owned resources and community owned resources together over time at every school in a district and addressing the complications stemming from the scale of public education in the U.S.( The 2007 National Conference on Safe
Schools 7533SAFE SCHOOLS IN THE CONTEXT OF SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT byHoward S. Adelman, Ph.D. a Linda Taylor, Ph.D. )
