School Safety: Why Are School Seeing Problems With Safety? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Safety in schools is considered to be a contributor to the success of students. Students' performance will depend on the safety of their academic environment. School safety should be ensured both inside and outside classrooms. Students' safety is not only physical dangers. Other contributors lead to an unfavorable environment for students such as unstable families, psychological instability and violence from fellow students. The current education systems have worked towards ensuring that teachers, parents, education stakeholders and community work together to ensure students understand their safety in schools. Schools are supposed to be the safest place for students but on the contrary schools still, face safety problems. What reasons contribute to safety problems in schools?

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Security measures that affect the emotional safety of students. Most schools have taken measures to install cameras both inside and outside the schools. The outdoor cameras have proven to boost how students feel about their safety. However, the indoor cameras, on the contrary, make students feel less safe. According to (Johnson, Bottiani, Waasdorp, & Bradshaw, 732-738) Students in schools should be physically and emotionally safe. There is a significant problem on the emotional safety of students since most schools have focused their security measures on the physical part. Installation of cameras inside the school make students feel less safe in the sense that they always feel they are being spied on. It is, therefore, necessary for school administrations to consider doing away with indoor cameras in schools.

Guns shootouts and physical harm to students are never the greatest safety problems. Lack of strategies to solve pervasive problems in schools could be the reason why schools still face safety problems. Most schools have put their focus in preventing guns shootouts forgetting other threats on students. Gun violence is not common dangers faced by schools. The security plan is there to prevent loss and be ready for emergencies. Schools will continue to face common dangers such as cyberbullying, social isolation and sexual exploitation on students if their security plan is only aimed at solving gun problems. Safety problems will always arise if administrators fail to update its understanding of school security plan. Administrators should also not consider security as a secondary program (Kirszner, Laurie, and Stephen np)

Inaccurate understanding of safety issues. There are quite some schools and district officers who have performed poorly when it comes to assessing school safety about its daily management. Most audits carried out by schools only focus on physical security forgetting address matters such as negative behavior groups, sexual abuse, and cultural groups. Schools also do not have functioning methods of collecting data which can be turned to produce meaningful action plans. Safety problems will continue to affect schools when there are no prediction policies. Currently, most policies are used in controlling students and criminal engaging in schools. School stakeholders have failed in coming up with management procedures that can be used to predict such problems and eventually prevent them (Mayer & Furlong, 16-26).

Lack of effective emergency management in schools is another reason for continued safety problems. Most schools have set up emergency plans. The problem is that staff members have not been trained in ways of managing such emergencies. Schools with special needs children are for instance affected during emergencies in cases where school staff has not received training on how to handle such students. Specials need students should not be placed with regular students without provision of proper support. During emergencies students with special needs often find themselves panicking. Staff is therefore required to ensure they have the necessary skills to handle manage emotions of needy students at times of emergencies.

Lack of collective responsibility in solving security problems. Some schools do not consider security as a priority among other disciplines. Academic problems are considered to be a priority by most schools forgetting schools safety. Schools should consider safety as a collective responsibility of students, security personnel, teachers and districts officials. Teenage students have turned out to be violent due to their lack of ability to resolve problems they are facing as individuals. Internet social interactions among students can compel them into peer pressure. Peer pressure may compel teens to engage in violence due to their aggressiveness. Actions of such teens within schools could cause safety problems in case they engage in violent acts such as bullying and property vandalism. It is therefore important for teachers to ensure that they are patient and talk to students especially teens.

Lack of funding and budgets for solving safety problems is another reason why schools still face safety problems. Most lawmakers feel that budgets to schools should be cut off. Safety problems in public schools will continue to be there if there are limited resources. Limited resources imply that schools will lack trained personnel on safety measures, poor services to offer needy students and few staff. Some argue that safety problems will not reduce or eliminated even if funding is increased, which is not true.

Conclusion

In conclusion school safety problems is not something that can be solved in one day. Solving safety problems in schools is a continuous process that requires collective contributions from all education stakeholders. Most highlighted issues that have led to safety problems in schools are lack of funds, lack of collective responsibility, and lack of effective emergencies plan and lack of strategies to solve pervasive problems. Problems in public schools are many, but the first step to being taken in solving them is first to identify them. After identifications of problems to be solved, it should now make it easy for educators, parents, students, school staff, community and lawmakers to come together and provide long term solutions.

Works Cited

Johnson, S. L., Bottiani, J., Waasdorp, T. E., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2018). Surveillance or Safekeeping? How School Security Officer and Camera Presence Influence Students' Perceptions of Safety, Equity, and Support. Journal of Adolescent Health, 63(6), 732-738. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.06.008

Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Practical Argument: A Text and Anthology. Macmillan, 2010.

Mayer, M. J., & Furlong, M. J. (2010). How safe are our schools?. Educational Researcher, 39(1), 16-26. https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X09357617.