Commentary on safe and supportive schools. Jared R. Lancer, Ed.D.

Based on observation and firsthand experience, there is no school that does not need to improve. Similarly, there is no parent concern regarding their child’s comfort and safety, academic progress and development that is not valid and legitimate.

These are two important considerations when thinking about the extent to which our schools function as safe and supportive environments that promote continuous learning and where every child is nurtured to grow their unlimited potential to develop socially, psychologically, intellectually and academically as an independent thinking person. To the degree an organizational culture does not share and operationalize such a perspective into its systems, structures and practice, there is a greater likelihood children will experience trauma and harm within the context of traditional public schools.

The following provides at least three actions schools can take to foster a safe and supportive learning environment that promotes continuous improvement and learning for all students:?

1)??????Treat every parent concern regarding their child’s comfort and safety as well as academic progress and development as valid and legitimate.

If a parent reports a concern regarding even their child’s comfort in the school, listen to understand and document the concern as well as enlist the parent’s suggestions on how to best address the matter to their satisfaction. If at any time a parent reports a concern regarding their child’s emotional, psychological or physical safety – whether due to harassment or bullying of any kind – take action to immediately put a plan in place to ensure that the child feels safe and supported. Communicate the plan to the parent immediately.?Ensuring that the child feels safe and supported with a plan in place and communicated to parents is an immediate first order of operation.?Administrative investigation can subsequently follow as required.?

This reflects a position of caring, trust and respect towards students and parents and places as the top priority ensuring that students feel comfortable and supported as well as safe inside public schools. Responding with the need to ‘investigate’ absent first taking action to ensure the psychological, emotional and physical safety of students communicates a lack of caring for the well-being of children as actual people; it further conveys a disbelief in the legitimacy of the student and parent’s concern on the part of the school.

Thus, even in the event the school conducts an ‘investigation’ and does not believe there is sufficient evidence, this typically has little to do with the actual expected action on behalf of the reporting parent and student in terms of what they are hoping to accomplish. Taking the concern seriously and taking actions to ensure that the student feels safe and supported to the parent’s satisfaction represents the main goal to be accomplished. A school response to this effect communicates trust and respect towards students and families.

While investigation is oftentimes required according to administrative policy and procedure based on the nature of the reported concern, the outcome from such an investigation is typically consequential for an alleged perpetrator. However, this response may not represent the intention or the desired actions requested by the parent on behalf of their child. Parents want to know their concerns are heard and taken seriously and that actions will be taken to ensure that their child feels safe and is treated fairly and with respect – and that there is evidence that their child is being nurtured and supported and is growing in their unlimited learning potential.

2)??????Documentation of student responses.

In the traditional school, documentation typically reflects 'student incidents' representing a variety of conflicts and infractions recorded in a child’s file that might be referred to as a ‘social/behavioral report.’ This report is unilaterally generated and recorded from the perspective of the school staff. These reports may travel with the child from school to school within a district which has significant long-term implications that do not serve the best interests of the child. These school records are kept with a stated aim of identifying ways to develop interventions to support student success. In some cases, a student’s day-to-day experience at school over the course of an academic semester or school year may result in voluminous pages of documentation reflecting various conflicts, violations and infractions recorded from the perspective of the school staff. This documentation may also come as a complete surprise to students and families, who typically would not have any knowledge that such records even exist unless they were to inquire about it and request to review them.?This traditional practice of documentation runs counter to maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment based upon mutual respect for and among all stakeholders and that promotes a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Alternatively, how powerful would it be if traditional public schools devoted such time and energy to the practice of documenting learner responses to teaching? How powerful would it be to spend that amount of time documenting what students find curious and interesting as well as to record the situations in which particular students are highly engaged as active participants within the overall social context of the school as well as in classroom learning? How powerful would it be to maintain such documentation for each child – to know their experiential knowledge, preferences, as well as academic strengths in terms of particular skills as well as specific academic challenges, and appreciating the patterns that emerge across groups of learners to better inform pedagogical and curricular adjustments as well as changes in the overall social context for learning?

What would happen if administrative policies and procedures required an invitation to parents and students to share their view and experience pertaining to a concern held among school staff to better understand the learner’s perspective and that of the family? How does the child see, experience and process the situation? What is the child’s perspective? What is the family’s point of view? Is it possible there are other concerns the school is unaware of? Is it possible the original concern shared among the school staff does not take into full consideration the social context operating within the particular school setting??Perhaps at a minimum, the school will come to better understand challenges and opportunities when considering multiple perspectives including the child and the family.?This understanding will lead to making informed decisions when determining which adjustments need to be made in the social context, pedagogy and the curriculum in order to better meet the needs of groups of students who share a similar response pattern.

As such, an appropriate and responsive expectation among school districts is to encourage and invite students and parents as active participants in these conversations. This ensures transparent and open communication based upon mutual respect with a flexibility for coming to better understand how to meet the needs of all students with the best interest of the child at the start, center and end of all decision making. As a result, this means that students and parents would function as partners in co-constructing such documentation with a narrative recorded at the school regarding each learner. In this way, families would not be surprised or alarmed regarding the school’s documentation regarding their child. To the contrary, families would be well informed and kept apprised as partners and co-constructors of what is recorded about their child and how this information is being utilized to better meet the academic and developmental needs of their child. In fact, it raises the question as to why all student documentation maintained by the school would not be co-developed and/or minimally reviewed by the student and family with an open invitation to students and parents to contribute additional commentary to the file. This policy and practice functions to best support the developmental needs, continued progress and success of all students. This policy and practice is in the long-term best interest of the child and all learners.

3)??????Identify observable patterns and opportunities for continuous improvement.

Treating concerns raised by students and families seriously - especially those pertaining to comfort, safety and academic progress - means understanding and respecting the perspectives shared in terms of challenges and proposed solutions. Treating concerns seriously and with respect also means acting deliberately and with genuine intention to address parent and student concerns to their satisfaction - especially pertaining to comfort, safety and academic progress. This perspective further provides opportunities to identify patterns across needs and concerns raised by students and families in terms of what is working and not working for students and for particular groups of learners.

Studying the documentation for identifiable patterns provides information and evidence necessary for meaningful analysis upon which to make adjustments or to take action for continuous progressive change.?At the same time, a singular case example of a reported concern may be powerful enough and provide the impetus for systemwide adjustments or other actions requiring changes to policies, administrative procedures and practice. Therefore, studying the documentation for case examples that illustrate and are representative of a systemwide gap or failure provides essential opportunities for professional staff development and important administrative actions to better serve all students and families.

On a final note, how powerful would it be if every family in each school participated in a beginning, middle and end year in-person interview? In addition to exchanging information, reviewing goals and expressing needs, the interview asks whether the student and family feel as if the school acted responsibly and did everything within its power to be flexible and responsive to the family and child in offering unlimited options and creative opportunities to ensure that the learner experienced academic success and demonstrated progress with verifiable evidence??What would happen if schools maintained the documentation and description of this conversation as well as the experience, perspective and suggestions shared by each family? What would happen if there were schools in which each family expressed that the staff did its due diligence and acted responsibly in doing everything within its power to be responsive and flexible in creating unlimited and varied options to ensure that their child made progress and growth corroborated with verifiable evidence?

It would be quite powerful if every family was able to send their child to such a P12 public school.

Jared R. Lancer ? Copyright 2022