Research Points to Lessons Learned and Opportunities to Address
- Brandon Bain
- Jun 11, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 8, 2024
<img decoding="async" class="alignright wp-image-83986 lazyload" src="https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-1030x1030.png" alt="" width="314" height="314" srcset="https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-1030x1030.png 1030w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-80x80.png 80w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-300x300.png 300w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-768x768.png 768w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-36x36.png 36w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-180x180.png 180w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-705x705.png 705w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-120x120.png 120w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1-450x450.png 450w, https://safeandsoundschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/1.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 314px) 100vw, 314px" />Last year, we released our first State of School Report, a national survey which aimed to shine a light on several school safety issues communities face. Our survey included perspectives from parents, students, educators (teachers, administrators, staff, mental wellness professionals, and SROs), and the general public.
We found there was a sizable communication gap between educators and other stakeholders (parents and students in particular) and that students were dissatisfied with their school’s current safety conversations and actions. These findings helped initiate some very important conversations in our schools and we are eager to continue our discussion as we looked towards our follow-up survey conducted earlier this year.
In the State of School Safety Report 2019, we followed up on the progress our school communities have made, but also aimed to discover new patterns that point to where we are falling short at the national level. We found there are still issues pertaining to the communication gap between educators and other stakeholders, with 60 percent of students feeling like their concerns and feedback are not being considered. Students also believe their school has an illusion of safety, which results in a false sense of security –with educators feeling largely split as to whether they agree or disagree with that assessment.
One of the most interesting findings we uncovered centered around the different perceptions between stakeholders, regarding mental health experts and education. We found that “80 percent of educators knew where to find mental health experts in their school, but only about 50 percent of parents and students did.” This statistic, and many others, indicate to us that there is still a lot to discuss when it comes to communicating with our school community about safety and resources. To read a summary of the research or the full report, download the report here: https://safeandsoundschools.org/research/.
We’d like to thank Bark for its generous donation that helped fund the Safe and Sound Schools team’s time to review results, coordinate external reviews, and prepare the final report.
Please share this report with your community to get the conversation started!
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