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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
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Results for school climate
2 results foundAuthor: Cornell, Dewey Title: Development of a Standard Model for School Climate and Safety Assessment Summary: The purpose of this project was to develop a standard model for the assessment of school climate and safety guided by authoritative school climate theory. We devised and tested student and school staff versions of the Authoritative School Climate Survey in a series of statewide surveys over a four-year period (2013-2016). In collaboration with the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and Department of Education, the project collected data from more than 700 secondary schools including 200,501 student surveys and 45,793 staff surveys. Participation rates were 98% for schools, 85% for students in grades 7-12, and 61% for teachers and other school staff invited to participate. A series of multi-level factor analytic studies established strong evidence of factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity for key scales measuring disciplinary structure, academic expectations, student support, student engagement, and prevalence of teasing and bullying. Scales were developed for both student and staff versions of the survey at both individual (student or staff) and school levels of analysis. Secondary scales to measure student aggressive attitudes, positive values, bullying victimization, and bullying by teachers were also developed. Project findings have been reported in 27 refereed journal articles to date, with additional articles in progress. An authoritative school was characterized by high expectations for students, as reflected in high disciplinary structure (strict but fair discipline) and high academic expectations for students, and high support for students (adults are respectful and caring toward students). The primary project findings were that characteristics of an authoritative school climate were associated with positive academic and behavioral outcomes at individual and/or school levels. The academic outcomes included higher student engagement, higher grades, higher standardized test passing rates, and lower dropout rates. The behavioral outcomes included lower student aggression toward both peers and teachers as well as less student involvement in risk behaviors of self-reported alcohol and marijuana use, bullying, fighting, weapon-carrying at school, interest in gang membership, and suicidal thoughts and behavior. All of the published studies included racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status variables in their analyses as studentor school-level measures. These analyses generally demonstrated that the primary findings of the study were not confounded by race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Additional analyses showed comparable criterion validity on key measures for Black, Hispanic, and White student groups. Furthermore, schools with authoritative characteristics had lower overall suspension rates and a lower gap between Black and White suspension rates. The results of this study will help move the field toward consensus on a theoretically-grounded and more psychometrically sound model for school climate and safety assessment. Details: Charlottesville, VA: Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, 2017. 147p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 10, 2017 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/251102.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/251102.pdf Shelf Number: 147645 Keywords: School ClimateSchool Crime School Discipline School Safety School Security School Violence Threat Assessment |
Author: Stringer, Scott M. Title: Safe and Supportive Schools: A Plan to Improve School Climate and Safety in NYC Summary: At a time when the nation is deeply embroiled in concerns around school safety, it is not surprising that many strategies for creating safe school environments are under renewed consideration - everything from providing more mental health services to students, to expanded school lockdown drills, to extreme responses calling for arming teachers with guns. The horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida served as a catalyst to this debate, forcing communities across the country to consider how best to safeguard their students. It is an important and overdue conversation - and one that New York City should seize as an opportunity to re-evaluate its own approach to creating safe and supportive school environments. To help guide the discussion, this report by the Office of the Comptroller Scott M. Stringer presents a review of current data related to school safety in New York City, and from that data draws a series of holistic recommendations on how to make City schools healthier and more secure.[i] It is based on the premise that "school safety," as a goal, extends beyond protecting children from external threats, and must include universal school-based mental health services, anti-bullying programs, and school disciplinary systems that students and teachers alike perceive as fair, not only in the rules they establish, but also in how equitably those rules are applied to different students and situations. Unfortunately, progress in improving the climate of New York City schools has been uneven. When surveyed, students disclose the fact that bullying remains common in schools, and has climbed in recent years. Additionally, despite the significant long-term impacts on students' academic outcomes, suspensions, issuing summonses, and even arrests continue to be used frequently in schools. These punishments continue to fall disproportionately on students of color. At the same time, while some schools are adopting less punitive, more restorative approaches to conflict resolution and behavioral challenges, without a system-wide, strategic implementation plan to support student mental health in schools and professional development of all school staff in trauma-informed crisis prevention and de-escalation, many schools are poorly equipped to significantly improve school climate. Research indicates that arrest or court involvement involving students doubles the likelihood that a student will not complete high school. Similarly, suspension from school increases the likelihood that a student will drop out by more than 12 percent. The higher risk of drop out due to arrests and suspensions translates to significant costs, including lost tax revenues and additional social spending to taxpayers. And yet, despite recent improvements, such extreme responses are still common for students in New York City. Specific findings of this report include: In the 2017 student survey, 82 percent of students in grades 6-12 said that their peers harass, bully, or intimidate others in school, compared with 65 percent of students in 2012. In 2017, over 17 percent of students in grades 6-12, disagreed or strongly disagreed that they felt safe in hallways, bathrooms, locker rooms, or the cafeteria of the school. Likewise, 23 percent of students in the same age groups disagreed or strongly disagreed that they felt safe in the vicinity of the school. In 2017, 17 percent of students surveyed feel that there is no adult in the school in whom they can confide. Despite supporting policies to reduce suspensions, the most recent data shows that suspensions increased in City schools by more than 20 percent in the first half of the 2017-18 school year compared with the same time period the year before. Black students are suspended at more than three times the rate of white students. Of the 612 schools reporting the most violent incidents in the 2016-17 school year, 218 (36 percent) have no full-time social worker on staff. Of those that do have a social worker on staff, caseloads average over 700 students - well above the minimum recommended level of one social worker for every 250 general education students. School Safety Agents and NYPD officers issued over 2,000 arrests or summonses in schools in the 2016-17 school year for charges including marijuana possession and disorderly conduct. In newly released data on law enforcement activity in the City's schools, during the first quarter of 2018, there were 606 summonses and arrests, down from 689 in the same time period in 2017. In the 2016-17 school year, students were handcuffed in over 1,800 incidents, including children as young as five years old. More than 90 percent of students handcuffed were Black or Latinx. Similarly, 90 percent of all arrests or summonses involved Black or Latinx students. These trends underscore the urgency to apply new strategies to the long-running challenge of system-wide school safety and discipline reform. Without investments in school-based mental health, fostering student social and emotional growth, and clear accountability measures for school climate improvement, too many students will be left to feel that schools are not doing enough to keep them safe and to provide the healthy environment necessary for building strong communities and advancing academic progress. To address these issues, the Comptroller's Office recommends that the City and the Department of Education: Expand small social emotional learning advisories in all schools. Students who have a trusted group of peers and at least one adult to confide in have greater academic outcomes as well as more positive social attitudes and behaviors. Offering a daily or weekly advisory period within the school-day schedule, complete with a structured curriculum and teachers who are supported in implementing it, provides a framework to support and encourage students as they navigate social challenges. Many smaller schools already offer an advisory program and understand the benefits of a small group dynamic. To scale the advisory program to all schools, the DOE should begin by surveying schools to learn how many offer an advisory program within the school day. Additionally, the DOE should mandate that all middle and high schools have advisories in place and ensure schools have access to adequate curriculum supports and professional development. Expand the Ranks of Social Workers and Guidance Counselors in Our Schools. In most cases, in-school behavior incidents are best dealt with by professionals who are trained in the appropriate responses to emotional or behavioral crises. Yet many schools do not have even a single social worker on staff to respond to school incidents in a trauma-informed way. The City should invest in social workers, ensure they have dedicated time and space in schools to work with students, and ensure school management has the capacity to help them succeed. Add More Clarity to the Role of School Safety Agents. School Safety Agents (SSAs) are well-equipped to protect students from threats that may exist outside a school building, and to maintain secure school buildings and property. However, their training cannot prepare them - and they should not be expected - to police student behavior or manage mental health crises. In some cases, school administrations rely on Safety Agents or NYPD officers to respond to in-school incidents. In other cases, SSAs may interact with students in a way that is at cross purposes to a school culture based on trust and mutual respect. When Safety Agents interactions with students hinder a supportive school climate, other efforts to build trust within a school are minimized. This misalignment of resources has high economic costs to the City, as well as long-term social costs for children who end up diverted into the criminal justice system as a result of policing in schools. The City should update the Memorandum of Understanding that governs DOE's relationship with NYPD to clearly outline the appropriate SSA interventions for specific student misconduct scenarios. Fund a Comprehensive Mental Health Support Continuum. Nationwide, approximately two-thirds of youth with a mental health disorder go untreated. In New York City, with the launch of the ThriveNYC mental health initiative, more supports have become available in schools. However, to address mental health challenges for students - especially in schools with the highest incidents of suspensions and arrests - more targeted interventions and direct services for students are needed. The City should fund a continuum of mental health supports for the highest-need schools including hospital-based mental health partnerships, mobile response teams, and school-based mental health care. Establish and Oversee System-Wide Trauma-Informed Schools. Students impacted by trauma are present in every school in the City, particularly when that trauma is linked to the chronic stresses of poverty. Because trauma can severely disrupt a student's academic potential, schools need to support educators in taking a trauma-informed approach to students, through recognizing the signs in children and understanding how to positively respond to their academic and social-emotional behaviors. Classroom discipline that is trauma-informed is consistent, non-violent, and respectful. The Positive Learning Collaborative, an innovative pilot launched in 20 New York City Schools in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers, provides in-depth training to teachers in therapeutic crisis intervention, and supports school-wide bullying prevention and gender-inclusive schools. The City should create a system-wide trauma-informed approach at all City schools. Expand Baseline Funding for Restorative Practices. Restorative practices, an alternative to exclusionary discipline, emphasize empathy, personal responsibility, and restoring community in the conflict resolution process. Examples from around the nation show that the approach has been highly effective in improving school climate and reducing suspensions. But transitioning to restorative practices requires investment in school-based consulting on implementation and capacity-building, and centralized program supports and evaluation. The City should adopt and sustain funding for restorative justice initiatives for a minimum three-year implementation period, and expand the initiative's reach to more schools. School climate is a bedrock education issue. Without cultivating safe and supportive schools for students and teachers alike, other initiatives aimed at improving academic outcomes will not be maximized. Details: New York: New York City Comptroller, 2018. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 6, 2018 at: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/School-Climate.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/School-Climate.pdf Shelf Number: 153288 Keywords: School BullyingSchool ClimateSchool CrimeSchool DisciplineSchool SafetySchool Security |