Case Study on School Safety

Case Study on School Safety Melissa Rookard EDD 520 January 24, 2010 Leslie Faught It is evident that schools' policies, programs, practices, physical structure, and teachers are factors internal to the school that determine school safety. These are the only factors that are internal to the school and within fairly complete control of schools. It is these factors that can be reformed and adapted to meet the end result of school safety. School safety is also determined to a very large extent by students, their criminal and other behaviors. Students in turn wear the dual hat of external and internal factors. They are external factors because they are part of the community and are internal factors because they are part of the school and can be disciplined to a certain extent through school policies. There was an incident at Horribly Heard Middle School in Dayton, Georgia. A young man names, Bruce, brought a gun to school and was taken into custody by the Dayton Police Department along with the help of the Department Juvenile Justice. There were many key players in locating the student to insure the school safety. A student was shown the gun and reported to his teacher, Mrs. Daisy. Mrs. Daisy in turn contacted her administrator and asked if he could come to the classroom. Mrs. Daisy, team leader, instructed her team to take the students to the library to check out books. Shortly after, they left an announcement came over the intercom that all students and teachers remain in class until told to dismiss. Teachers were instructed to read their e-mail immediately and follow the instructions laid out in the e-mail. All teachers had to take roll and report any missing children to the front office staff. Mrs. Daisy and her team stayed in the library and check their e-mail in the library. Administrator Bob, Principal Hope, and Resource Officer Life, came to the classroom to search Bruce and taken him into custody if the weapon was indeed on him. Two additional administrators stayed in front of the classroom to ensure no one came down the hall. Office Life took Bruce into custody and he was charged with weapons on school grounds. Once Bruce was taken off school grounds school ran as normally as possible. After school and the students were gone, the staff has an emergency faculty meeting. Principal Hope informed the faculty of the incident today and the student would not return back to school. Student was taken into Juvenile Justice Custody and no one was hurt. The student that told the teacher was also spoke to along with his parents in regards to the incident. They asked that he did not repeat was has happen to ensure students safety and parents concern. Students bring weapons to school more times than we are made aware. At HHMS, faculty and administration communicates well as was able to ensure school safety. Having students stay in the classroom or stopping all movements in the hallways is one way to keep order and asking faculty to take roll immediately and report any missing students via e-mail to front office staff is vital. I believe HHMS handle the situation to the best of their ability. School security is the most common type of activity that administrators should specifically set up to prevent disorder in the school. The most prevalent security strategy used throughout HHMS is various ways to monitor student and non-student movement within the school. The staff and administrators were primarily responsible for this task. To avoid a situation other types of security strategies could be used. Examples, are hiring special security personnel, use of metal detectors, and random searches. Schools should have two basic approaches to rules and procedures. The first approach are teachers tend to deal with all but the most serious discipline problems, including setting punishment and calling parents (if necessary). The second approach tends to deal with small infractions within the classroom and then refer students to an administrator for repeated or more serious infractions. The administrator was responsible for assigning punishment and contacting parents. Regardless of the approach, consistency of rule enforcement emerged as an important issue, especially among students. It is the role of the principal in setting the overall tone in a school when it came to discipline and enforcement of rules. School staff expressed more satisfaction if the principal set clear expectations, communicated regularly with staff, and gave them a voice in school issues.