What Does Safe Mean? Exploring School Safety Definitions and Policies in Charter Schools

• In Event: Creating Safe Schools and Strong Relationships for Vulnerable Youth Populations of Color

Abstract

Purpose: School climate is associated with and promotes safety in schools, which in turn supports student learning and healthy development (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013). Research shows that youth largely conceptualize safety in relation to how they personally feel in a given environment (Moore & McArthur, 2017; Zuberi, 2018). As such, youth are able to feel safe in places that may not necessarily be safe and vice versa. The National School Climate Center posits that a healthy and positive school climate is fostered when schools, educators, families, and community members work together to achieve a shared school vision that supports people feeling socially, emotionally, and physically safe (2007). While extant literature documents the importance and impact of positive school climate and its association with school safety, school safety is still an ambiguously defined term (Astor, Guerra, & Van Acker, 2010). Moreover, little research has explored the ways that school administrators define safety and work to create safe schools via school policies. Given the rising number of charter schools in the U.S., and the highly controversial “no excuses” model upon which many are built, it becomes particularly relevant to explore school safety definitions and practices in charter schools (Cohodes, 2018). This study addresses current gaps in the literature via exploration of the following questions: How do charter school administrators define school safety? How do their definitions align with school policies?

Theoretical Framework: This research inquiry is grounded in Maslow’s theory of human motivation (Maslow, 1943)which asserts that safety is a basic human need upon which a student can build toward self-actualization. This framework informs the way that this study conceptualizes the necessary conditions for student success, development, and academic achievement and informs analyses of data.

Method: This study employed an hour long in-depth, semi-structured interview with principals and vice principals from 6 different charter schools. Administrators were leaders of charter schools serving 9-12th grade students of color from predominately low-income inner-city neighborhoods. Along with one-on-one interviews, document analyses of student and family handbooks for each school were also conducted.

Preliminary Findings: Administrators had various, individual definitions of safety that often differed from the operational definitions of safety for their school. Moreover, while they all acknowledged mental health as an important component of safety, they expressed having little resources to provide the necessary services to students and families, and mental health was not thoroughly addressed in their school policies. Administrators also discussed the importance of a healthy social climate at school and made reference to bullying policies in their handbooks.

Significance: This study provides insight on how school leaders rationalize safety and in turn how administrators’ reasonings about school safety influence school policy for charter schools. This study also emphasizes the importance of theorizing and codifying definitions of safety.

Author

• Elianny C. Edwards, University of California - Los Angeles