Recently, concerns over school safety have skyrocketed, with parents expressing heightened fears for their children’s well-being. Gallup’s latest survey reveals alarming statistics, indicating that 44% of adults fear for their children’s physical safety at school, marking a significant increase since 2019. This surge in anxiety comes on the heels of several devastating mass shootings across the country, further exacerbating parental worries.

The rise in safety concerns is not unfounded. Tragic incidents (such as the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers lost their lives) have left communities reeling.

In response to these alarming trends, schools must take proactive measures to ensure the safety and well-being of students. Here are three responses that can help address school safety concerns:

Enhanced Security Measures:

• Implement robust security protocols, including increased surveillance, access control systems, and metal detectors, to deter potential threats and enhance situational awareness.
• Conduct regular safety drills and training sessions to educate students and staff on emergency response procedures and ensure they are prepared to respond effectively in crises.
• Collaborate with local law enforcement agencies to conduct security assessments and develop comprehensive emergency response plans tailored to each school’s needs.

Active Defender’s School Safety Platform provides comprehensive situational awareness during a crisis to help reduce the chaos. Features include, but are not limited to;

• Real-time alerting and communication;
• customized, live, dynamic campus mapping, allowing every staff member to know what and where the threat is;
• live status reporting indicating if staff is okay or needs assistance; 
• student accountability feature, allowing administrators to account for every student in the first 5 minutes of a crisis and
• integration capabilities with local police departments and 911 centers to show first responders where the threat is located.

To learn more about what Active Defender can do to enhance your school’s safety and security measures, visit Active-Defender.com.

Mental Health Support Services:

• Allocate resources to expand mental health support services within schools, including hiring additional counselors and psychologists to provide students with emotional support and coping strategies.
• Establish peer support programs and student-led initiatives that promote mental wellness and create a supportive school environment where students feel comfortable seeking help when needed.
• Partner with community organizations and mental health professionals to offer workshops and educational sessions for parents to recognize signs of distress in children and access appropriate resources.

Strengthened Community Engagement and Prevention Efforts:

• Foster open communication and collaboration between schools, families, and community members to create a support network for promoting safety and well-being.
• Implement proactive prevention programs, such as anti-bullying campaigns, conflict resolution training, and substance abuse prevention initiatives, to address underlying issues and reduce the risk of violence.
• Organize community forums, town hall meetings, and safety summits to facilitate discussions on school safety concerns, share best practices, and develop community-driven solutions to address the root causes of violence.

By implementing these proactive responses, schools, and communities can work together to create safer environments for students, alleviate parental concerns, and foster a culture of resilience and support in the face of ongoing safety challenges. Together, we can prioritize the safety and well-being of our children and ensure that every student feels secure and protected at school.

Why Suspensions and Expulsions are a Problem?

According to the statistics, children get suspended more because of their suspicious behavior than they are given warnings for poor academic performance. This rate of constantly negating their opinions and forcing them to conform to specific regulations has led to an increased number on the suicide charts of people within the age range of 10 – 25, also adding up to the declining mental health of students globally.

There is no doubt that negative reinforcements are crucial to teaching children the importance of law and order and maintaining decorum in a classroom; however, amid teaching values, the authorities forget that they are being extraordinarily uncooperative and unmindful of the student’s perspectives.

Children should be given the freedom to express their thoughts and polish their creativity and innovative skills because only focusing on academics will decrease their love for hobbies. In comparison, some introverted students accept to conform to the values, while others rebel because they fail to keep up.

Suspensions and Expulsions are considerably pessimistic ways of punishment that a student could get. It highly affects the relationship between the school faculty and the student who is given the punishment.

Studies have shown that students who get these forms of punishment are more likely to commit crimes, get arrested and fall victim to drug abuse because, as a child, this punishment leads to them holding a grudge in their hearts. It gives them the sign that they are the problem, wrong, and unwanted, which makes them furious, resulting in poor academic performance, declining interest in extracurricular activities, or completing education overall.

According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), even though suicide affects all ages, the second most common cause of death was suicide for the age bracket between 10-14 and 25-34 in 2020. Overall, suicide comes in the top 9 causes of death within the age bracket of 10-64 in the statistics of the same year.

Notice how the lowest age of the suicide rates bracket is 10 years. Schools pressure children to keep following orders and don’t respect their perspective, whether they can cope or not or have an interest in other places. When they seek comfort from their parents, they fail to get it because even parents consider the school a good influence given they pay for it and expect their children to get educated. But this is where it all goes wrong. Not getting attention from anywhere makes them feel exhausted for all the right reasons, and they rebel.

Suppose they aren’t given the freedom of expression or the attention they need. In that case, they start acting up from behavioral issues to talking back to skipping classes and breaking the school decorum by influencing others to do the same. In this case, taking action is very important because if appropriate action is not taken, other students will start following this behavior, and the whole school could potentially go rogue. However, to take action does not mean convicting them directly to a suspension or expelling them from school because it won’t teach them patience and respect but quite the opposite. This is where alternatives come in; you want to teach them to respect school rules the right way, so give them the appropriate response.

In the extensive list of alternatives to suspensions and expulsions, the below mentioned are some that are most effective in teaching the right motive to the students when they are expected to conform.

Alternatives to Suspension and Expulsions.

 1.     Restorative Justice

Restorative Justice is a way to deal with equity. Research supports the fact that restorative justice, as a matter of consequence, has positive results, and most examinations recommend it makes guilty parties doubtful to re-insult. This method can teach students the essence of discipline and the importance of owning good behavior at school.

One of the reactions to wrongdoing, specifically in a school environment, is to put together a gathering between the student in question and the wrongdoer, sometimes within the presence of a senior who could solve the matter.

A fair justice program at school means getting the offensive students to take more time for their activities, comprehend the damage they have caused, offer them a chance to make up for themselves, and deter them from hurting. For casualties, it will probably give them a functioning job all the while and to diminish sensations of uneasiness and weakness.

The primary objective is for them to share their experience of what occurred, examine who was hurt by the scenario and how alongside making an agreement on how the guilty party might fix the damage from the offense. This might incorporate an installment of cash from the wrongdoer to the person in question, conciliatory sentiments and other revises, and different activities to repay those impacted and keep the guilty party from hurting the future.

 2.     Community Service

Local area administration, which is pointed toward aiding the beneficiary, has administration as its essential concentration. Local area administration programs are ordinarily founded on social causes and are expected to deliver wise, moral, and conceptual results. On the contrary, administration learning is generally founded on a scholarly discipline, gives advantages to both the beneficiary and supplier of the help, and plans to deliver intellectual and city results.

Through people group administration learning, we engage kids by demonstrating the difficulties confronting our reality – and afterward, cooperate towards tracking down arrangements that assist. Community service can ascend, bring change, and control our future from critical thinking to teamwork. On another level, it concentrates on showing that youngsters who volunteer that:

• They are more bound to becoming engaged with “in danger” conduct and hence would adapt and know if future circumstances similar to these ever occur.
• Living life closer to reality boosts their confidence, fosters new interactive abilities, and
• Foster longings to be morally mindful that stay with them deep-rooted!

Community service learning is an instructing/learning strategy that interfaces significant local area administration with academic learning, self-awareness and positive behavior obligation. Showing liability for the benefit of all, creating autonomous reasoning, and conforming to the standards set by society are the primary explicit objectives.

Enforcing community service as a consequence for students in place of detainment is a magnificent choice to show people what comprises a positive way of behaving. In any case, showing all people the effects of finishing local area administration exercises is a way we can urge kids to settle on the decision to mind, a decision that will remain with them as they become grown-ups – and maybe even guardians.

Through this process, not only do they learn the importance of obedience but also benefit society by giving their services – achieving the principal building blocks youngsters need to become mindful grown-ups.

3.     Positive Behavioral Intervention Classes

To ensure that behavioral issues in students don’t ignite from school, the school administration should ensure that all students at school are treated equally and fairly and that there is a respectful relationship between students and their teachers. They are to be taught the school course and good manners on the side, but the teachers should pave too much of the parent’s duty. The faculty should, at all times, be motivating students to perform better and not degrade them if they get a bad score. Their focus should be on building a good relationship with all students and should not be encouraging any kind of discriminative activity.

Wrapping Up

Schools need to understand that a misbehaving student needs help getting polished; therefore, teaching that child is an opportunity for the school to increase their exposure as well. They should incorporate a proactive way to deal with screening harmful students and associate them with good decisions before their rebelling methods become so severe that there is no other option than to expel them from school.

In contrast to suspensions and removal of students, options will keep the students interested, associated, and connected to the school. Giving them opportunities to become better each time, eventually, with all the proper action methods, they will change and become better.

To boost the results on the positive side, the admin should personally deal with the child and talk to them, as that is the most effective way to get to know what’s running in their mind and the motive behind their behavior. Through this one-on-one session, they can also explain the consequences to the student in case they repeat their actions in the future, and this helps them think thoroughly and avoid more severe consequences next time.

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Nevertheless, why is it essential and frequently so harmful simultaneously?
Does social media affect the school climate? Let’s dig into it!

PROS of Social Media in Classroom – School Climate

A Good Way To Keep Students Updated

Social media platforms are a great way to keep in touch with the entire world. But for schools, the benefit keeps growing considering numerous people are reached just through a tap on the screen. A simple Facebook account can broadcast your lives, updates, and any other news you want to put out; the students themselves become aware, and it goes around the globe so you can up your means of marketing of the school for zero charges.

Promoting School Activities

Whether it is a bake sale or a charity drive, the best way to gain attraction for the school’s event is through word of mouth. Although word of mouth in this era is not considered the actual phrase, it is through students chatting online. Schools can build up their websites and promote their content and school activities online; gather outside traffic.

CONS of Social Media in the Classroom – School Climate

Less Physical Interaction

A school’s primary role is to instill education through physical interaction, bonding, and socializing. Furthermore, this system of physical school has been declining to a reasonable extent ever since the pandemic. This change seriously affects children’s academic curriculum. There has been a significant increase in the high school dropout rate, which significantly impacts potential future employability.

PROS of Social Media in Classroom – School Culture

Ease of Communication

One thing to admit is the ease of communication through social media and internet usage. Nowadays, there is less emphasis on submitting homework and assignments through paper. With a simple email, a teacher can contact any of their students and get their thoughts and comments conveyed while being professional.

Chromebooks and Multimedia Presentations

It is easier and cheaper to get through literature and history classes with a chrome book facility. Additionally, with Chromebooks or computers in hand, multimedia presentations are more accessible to students while making the lesson enjoyable to gain focus and concentration. All these positives pair up with the fact that students are not under pressure to constantly learn the whole presentation while taking notes; these documents and presentations could quickly be sent through social media to students groups or even by posting them online.

Staying Updated

With the news of the whole world in the palm of our hands, it’s safe to say that we’d be aware of anything happening, anywhere, with just one google notification. This way, strategies and examples to learn concepts are more recent and advanced, which ultimately caters to the point since professional lives are present.

Security Monitoring Via Social Media

With the new tools like Active Defender Monitor, a campus can evaluate word analysis around posts that involve keywords that also reference their name or are in the vicinity of their campus.  With a designed to deliver content discovery that trouble may be brewing, proper intervention and response can help prevent hurt feelings from becoming tragic problems.

CONS of Social Media in the Classroom – School Culture

Priorities are Generally Sacrificed

In this fast-paced world, there is always competition that we all face at any age and at any given time. However, it is ten times harder for teenagers, especially students, to cope with being the ‘coolest’ in school. Social media sets down so many impossible and unrealistic expectations that it is hard for kids to process especially being so young, not to mention the pressure that comes with maintaining whatever title the internet gives them. In this run of getting the so-called title, the student’s schooling gets affected.

Wrapping Up

The truth is, where social media and advanced technology can be a solution moving towards the evolution of the new era, it can also be harmful and impact us negatively. As much as you hate to admit it, the comparisons, the competition, the thriving to be the ‘best one’ facade is present and manifests and magnifies itself through social media.

Maybe this is a significant contributor to why teens keep scrolling and scrolling on their phones 24/7. Maybe this is why having severe disorders like anxiety and depression is so widespread and routine now. Maybe this is a factor in why some kids at school rebel or find it hard to follow the rules. Somewhere or the other, social media is connected to everything. We cannot live without it, but I think we must better understand and train how to live with it.

Social media has advertised that it can help you be seen and possibly become famous worldwide overnight. It is mind-blowing that you can know what is happening in any corner of the world with just one tap on your phone. Fifty years ago, no one had the slightest clue about the internet or how it works; the whole concept of wireless transmission of data was nearly impossible to humanity. Nevertheless, here we are, we can forget our keys at home, but do you recall forgetting your phone? Rarely!

That is the power and the importance social media holds in our lives.

 References:

Active Defender provides a digital panic button that can instantly call for help.

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