The Question of Safety in Public Schools

             Today was the first day of spring and one of the topics that preoccupied my day was fighting in schools.  For a blog about urban reform, this might seem like a minor issue when compared with unequal funding, crumbling facilities, and poor achievement.  This said, when I look back at what school was like for me, fighting, especially the vicious fighting that I saw today, was not part of the situation.

            I teach at a northwestern Baltimore public middle school that has experienced more than it’s fair share of tragedy from school violence.  With the opening of spring and the conclusion of the first part of the MSA tests, I personally witnessed three terrible fights.  Also today, eight female students were arrested at Northwestern High School after a fight that involved around 30 girls, and a middle school student at Booker T. Washington was arrested after a fight with a teacher (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-northwestern0320,0,1818176.story).  In conversations with my colleagues, a number of teachers mentioned that today, being the start of spring, was just the beginning for this kind of misbehavior.  The sad part about what they were saying was not just that there is the potential for a great amount of physical violence in the school, but that it is part of an end-of-year status quo.

            Some might attribute the violence faced by urban schools to the environment in which students are raised.  Guerra, Huesmann, and Spindler (2003) conclude that witnessing violence in the community can create greater levels of aggression in students.  While this may be true, accepting violent physical manifestations of higher aggression levels as part of urban public school status quo is both unacceptable and blatantly unjust.  Not only might community environment influence the levels of violence of students, but so too does school environment and school climate (Welsch 2000).  Personally, I experience a large amount of frustration with unfair or unexplained rewards and consequences.  I constantly feel that the administration at my school is unclear and uncommunicative, that there is not a clear definition of unacceptable behavior, and that there is no consistency in response to misbehavior.  Not only is the poor school climate fostered by this kind of behavior frustrating for students, teachers, and parents, but it also stands to be the culprit in school violence.

            When thinking about urban reform in Baltimore City Public Schools, a strong judgment needs to be made about administrative policies and messaging of critical information to students.  In order to have a chance to affect achievement gains and support the whole student, there needs to be a commitment to the examination of the issue of school violence.  Clearly, either the policies in place now or the way in which they are being implemented in some public schools is ineffective.  Without providing a safe environment for all students, how can schools hope to be havens for learning and growth?