43 percent of students say they feel safe in school

By Meagan Engle | Friday, June 26, 2009, 02:11 PM

In this Sunday’s Journal, you can read a story about Middletown’s discipline and safety committee.

The committee was first formed by the school board with community members, with teachers later negotiating spots with the group.

From that group’s recommendations, Middletown will be focusing on improving climate next year.

Every year, Middletown does a climate survey with students.

For the 2008-09 school year, 46 percent of students reported students are violent; 52 percent reported students threaten to hurt others and 43 percent said they feel safe in school.

Read the report’s summary after the jump…

The purpose of this School Climate study was to continue investigating Middletown students’ attitudes regarding the climate of their school and their perceived level o f connectedness to school.

This study was fIrst conducted in the fall of 2005 and then replicated in the fall of 2006 and the fall of 2007. A report on the findings of those studies were completed and discussed in the previous years. Students attending Vail, Verity, Middletown High School, Middletown High School Success Academy and Central Academy served as the participants of the study this year.

A 2-page, 55-item survey developed b y Dr. Keith King assessed students’ perceived school connectedness and attitudes toward their school ‘s climate. Students were distributed the survey in their classroom settings. In the spring o f 2009, the School Climate survey was again distributed to Middletown students.

Data was collected as a means to continue monitoring students’ perceptions regarding school climate. Similar to data from the previous three years, results indicated that most Middletown students felt that their school climate was fairly positive on most indicators.

Concerning the adults in their school, most students felt that adults in their school treated them fairly, encouraged them to do well, respected them, were friendly to them, and expected them to do well. Half (51 %) felt that adults at their school cared about them (compared to 46% in 2007-2008) while one-third (38%) felt that adults at their school made them feel important (29% in 2007 -2008).

Nearly half (46%) felt that adults at their school try to understand them (compared to 41 % in 2007-2008). Equivalent to last year, a total of 54% reported that there is an adult at their school who they could go to if they had a problem.

Similarly, 54% reported that they felt like they fIt in at their school.

Two-thirds (65%) did not know that their school had a student assistance program, compared to 71 % in 2007-2008. Regarding student behaviors, 62% felt that students are rude to one another (compared to 63% in 2007-2008), while 14% felt students are kind to one another (compared to 10% in 2007-2008).

Thirteen percent reported that other students bully t hem (compared to 12% in 2007-2008), whereas 7% reported t hat they bully other students (compared to 7% in 2007- 2008).

Regarding perceived violence, 46% reported that students are violent (compared to 45% in 2007-2008), whereas 52% reported that students threaten to hurt others (compared to 51 % in 2007-2008).

Regarding perceived safety, 43% of students reported feeling safe in school (compared to 39% in 2007-2008).

Similar to the fInding from the previous surveys, the majority of students reported that there were several opportunities to become involved in extracurricular activities at school. Such activities help to build positive connections among students and help in preventing student violence and substance use.

A table illustrating the reported school climate differences among 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 is provided on the following pages. In addition, complete frequency distributions for each item in the 2008-2009 report are provided. Analyses were also conducted to determine whether perceived school climate differed based on school, sex, grade, and race. These results are also displayed in this report.

Such fIndings should be benefIcial in determining areas of improvement and areas needing further attention. School climate and students’ perceived connectedness to the school has been shown in several research studies to be a leading protective factor against students’ involvement in alcohol use, tobacco use, marijuana use, violence, suicide, and early sexual behavior.

Thus, strategies to increase positive connections among students and their school should be explored.

In addition, since many students in this study reported that they were not aware of their school’s student assistance program additional steps should be taken to further promote such resources.

In so doing, students can receive the help that they need. Regarding violence prevention, perceived safety and positive school climate, some improvements have been noted. Steps should continue be taken to ensure that all students feel safe and secure within their school environment.

Continued attention to violence and bullying prevention is warranted.

 

 

Article observations- out of 100% of the students- all 6700 of them, 46%reported violence, 52% reported threats and 43% felt safe. 100% asked- 141% responded ?????? OR, were these asked as individual questions and these are the %'s from each question from the 100% asked? That would make sense. Isn't clear to me how this was set up as the article was written.

46% of the students said that the adults "try to understand them" What is this all about? What's to "understand"? The adults are there to instruct and the students are there to learn. Simple concept isn't it? Why the concentration on "personal relations" and "feel good about one another"??? The schools aren't "mom and dad". Why the kid glove treatment? Let 'em grow up and face the old cruel world. Gonna have to sometime. You're not doing them any favors by treating them in a "delicate" fashion. They'll get "eaten alive" out there in competition land. Might be too harsh on my part- but- maybe not.

"Extracurriculars build positive connections between students, prevent student violence and substance abuse"- maybe, but the targeted troublemakers usually don't participate in these "positive" activities do they? If not, this does nothing to get the problem students more involved to occupy their time in a positive way. It might, however, prevent others from going over to the "dark side of behavior".

There are tables from this survey from 2005. That's 4 years ago. What has been the activity by the schools based on the last 3 years of data? Did they just look at the numbers and shrug their shoulders or did they attempt to act on the data received? If they shrugged, this whole thing is another example of people gathering for a purpose and then doing nothing as to the outcome of the gathering. A waste of effort.

"Continued attention to violence and bullying prevention is warranted" No kidding! Great generalized statement that means nothing unless they develop and implement SPECIFIC rules to engage the violence and bullying. Otherwise, just empty meaningless words. This applies to all of their "strategies" in finding solutions.

"Connectedness" What is that? Is that really a word Meagan? Isn't it more connected?

Bottom line- stop coddling these kids. Place a level of acceptable achievement before them, make the rules strict, structured and demand ( stop the "feel good" crap) that they stay in line or this is what happens to you. If you give them expectations and apply firm hard rules and give them the proper tools to succeed, they will grow. Look at the parochial schools and service academies that still have a semblance of discipline. They seem to have better control of the classroom and they produce much better results. Military basic training converts any and all types into conformity. Control by authority from the parochial school mentality to the military mentality , produces structured, trained, competent people who will succeed in this competitive world of working. Even the discipline problems will work their way into conforming with the proper motivation. The military has been doing it for generations. JMO

Someone explain this comment to me, "The Discipline and Safety Committee had several areas it wanted to address to help improve discipline, but because of state guidelines, members could only pick one."