Peter Atkinson: Safe, Inclusive, & Accepting Schools

STUDENT VOICE ON SAFE, INCLUSIVE, AND ACCEPTING SCHOOLS

For close to 20 years, students from all intermediate-secondary schools in the Ottawa Catholic School Board have come together once a year to talk about peace keeping at the Secondary Peace Conference. In past years, there has been a keynote speaker who ids the focal point of the conference. This year, however, to quote Peace Confrence coordinator Principal Bill Barrett, "the students were the keynote speakers."

Students from Ottawa Catholic secondary schools gather for annual Peace Conference

So it was that on December 14, over 300 students gathered at Scotiabank Place to share their opinions on safety, inclusivity, and acceptance in high schools. In actual fact, the dialogue began even before the conference as students were invited to post their thoughts and views on a Facebook page set up ahead of time:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ottawa-Catholic-School-Board-Peace-Conference-2012/122454447912319?ref=hl

During the morning of the Secondary Peace Conference, students sat in groups that were faciltated by preservice teachers from the University of Ottawa. Each of the 30 or so groups came up with recommendations on how to amke our schools even safer and more inclusive. Then, during the afternoon, the group lists were consolidated.

One of the Peace Conference group

Two Peace Conference attendees, St. Pius X High School students Amanda Rocca and Kevin Laporte, were then given the great privilege and awesome responsibility of presenting the student recommendations to the Ottawa Catholic School Board trustees at their March 26 meeting. Some of the students' recommendations were as follows:

- Continue to provide access to guidance counselors and social workers

- Promote peer support programs in all schools

- Encourage student involvement in kindness and bullying awareness campaigns

- More focus on cyber-bullying, safe internet use, mental health, and drug addiction

- Greater focus on rehabilitating students

- Anonymous reporting systems for bullying

- More activities that allow students to promote safety and celebrate acceptance

(L. to R.): Principal Luce Paradis; St. Pius X High School students Amanda Rocca
& Kevin Laporte; Board Chairperson Mark Mullan; Principal Bill Barrett; and

Superintendent Peter Atkinson.

Book Review: Creating Safe School Environments - From Small Steps To Sustainable Change

Authors Peter G.Jaffe, Claire V. Crooks, and C. Lynn Watson, conducted research over a period of 3 years with educators, parents, and students in 23 schools in 4 boards across Ontario in order to create their systematic framework for assessing school safety needs and helping schools develop plans to address their specific needs.

They begin their book Creating Safe School Environments: From Small Steps To Sustainable Change by identifying the following elements of a successful school violence prevention program:

- Comprehensive (whole-school focus)

- Focus on skill development (ie. Problem-solving skills)

- Strategic selection of targets for change

- Includes students in program delivery

- Includes parents as partners

- Attends to implementation issues

The authors then go on to acknowledge the barriers to implementing and sustaining a violence prevention strategy, including the diversity of needs in communities, conflicting priorities in education, the need for resources and time for professional development, and the “pervasive societal messages about the acceptability of violence”.

A very important caution the authors give is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to violence prevention in schools. Instead, they emphasize that principals need to work with their communities to assess their unique safe school needs and develop a plan that is tailor-made to those identified needs.

With these ideas in mind, the authors’ outline their Safe Schools Continuum: a three-stage change model which describes the progression of schools to achieving sustainable safe schools initiatives.

School Safety Review with Ottawa Police Service,

Ottawa Fire Services, & Ottawa Paramedic Services

In Stage 1, Developing Awareness, principals and their staffs review current policies and procedures and assess the current climate of safety in their schools. In order to do so effectively, the authors provide a comprehensive School Assessment Checklist. Other assessment tools they recommend include school climate surveys and their own physical plant audit, which they dub the School Safety Audit.

As schools progress to Stage 2, Planning & Responding, principals and staffs actively engage all stakeholders – parents, students, and community agencies – to establish goals and an overall plan for making the school environment safe for everyone. The authors recommend the Safe and Accepting Schools Team as the mechanism for this collaborate process.

Finally, in Stage 3, Educating and Leading, a school consolidates its safe schools efforts.

Creating Safe School Environments: From Small Steps To Sustainable Change is an excellent resource for schools and boards to use in developing and sustaining whole-school approaches to positive school climate. In fact, it was a central resource we used in the training we provided for all our principals and Safe and Accepting Schools Teams to assist them in their foundational work in building safe, inclusive, and accepting environments in their schools.