Keeping Schools Safe, Happy Places for Everyone
When you walk into school in the morning, you want the climate to be happy, welcoming and supportive. But what if you are unable to feel any of those things? In some schools, hostilities seethe under the surface and boil over into bullying and fights. Rather than connection there’s a sense of alienation that hangs over the school like a storm cloud. In schools with negative school climates, achievement and attendance drop, and teacher churn begins to rise.
Following the tumultuous events of 2016, our schools and our young people are determined more than ever to create positive school climates. Indeed, events from last year—including a factious presidential election—highlighted the importance of a positive school climate, where everyone in the school community feels a sense of safety, belonging and well-being.
To learn more about school climate and what some schools are doing to improve it, NEA Today talked to Maureen Costello, Director of Teaching Tolerance, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
What are some school climate programs in place that educators can adapt for their schools at a low cost?
There are a lot of them – Not In Our School, No Place for Hate , Day of Silence, and one of our programs, Speak Up at School, to name a few. These are all programs that encourage students to be “upstanders” rather than bystanders and to confront bullying and bias when they hear it. Another way to improve school climate is Keeping Schools Safe, Happy Places for Everyone - NEA Today:
