Acting Out of Fear on School Safety

School safety is a growing concern among education leaders and policymakers as mass shootings in schools have rocked our nation, raising parents’ fears about their children’s safety to unprecedented levels.

These efforts put a face to fear, but fear is counterproductive to the trusting and positive culture essential to foster learning. We must not give in to irrational fears.

A Washington Post survey of every school in its database that had endured a shooting of some kind since 2012 makes the point. Half of the 79 respondents replied there was little they could have done to prevent the shooting. Those who did think they could have done more really didn’t know exactly what that would have been.

When probed further, they emphasized the critical importance of their staff members developing deep, trusting relationships with students, who often hear about threats before teachers do. Establishing school communities with close ties is what hope looks like.

Spending Surges

What we are hearing about most, however, are efforts to “harden” schools with lockdowns, more policing, metal detectors and teachers carrying guns. Turning schools into fortresses is what fear looks like. Fear is the opposite of the trust needed for learning to occur.

I know many of us think the hundreds of millions of dollars allocated by state legislatures for school security measures will protect our kids from the unimaginable threat of a mass shooting. Spending on school security by school districts has surged in the absence of research on which safety measures protect students from gun violence. The threat of school shootings has turned school safety into a growth industry to the tune of $2.7 billion, up from $2.5 in 2015.

By acting out of fear, we risk doing more harm than good. School lockdowns, during which students are abruptly commanded to hunker down without knowledge of what constitutes the threat, have become the norm. And yet, as the Washington Post analysis found, students of all ages are being adversely affected by the terrifying practice.

Experts in childhood trauma suspect that children who engage in this practice will suffer long-term consequences. Steven Schlozman, a child psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School, says the findings from the newspaper’s analysis pose a pressing public health issue.

Psychological Safety

Once a shooting starts, it’s too late to prevent the physical and psychological damage we’ve become familiar with. But what if the shooting could be prevented? Suppose students could be made to feel psychologically safer in more open, trusting environments through meaningful relationships with each other and the adults around them. Could this diminish the chances of harm from a student?

Amy Edmondson, a scholar in organizational learning at Harvard Business School, defines psychological safety as a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with questions, suggestions or concerns. Psychological safety is critical to students’ academic needs. It includes them feeling comfortable enough to confide in adults concerns they may have about students intending to do harm to the school, to themselves or to other students.

In their 2009 book, Comprehensive Planning for Safe Learning Environments, Melissa Reeves and two co-authors argue that students must have trust; that adults will act on their concerns; that a positive, respectful environment will be maintained; and that students can get the emotional assistance when needed.

A Balanced Tact

Today more than ever we need to balance the twin requirements of physical and psychological safety. Kids can’t learn if they’re harmed or if they experience trauma, hostility or uncertainty. School leaders can take more deliberate steps to establish a culture that promotes a sense of belonging and support, including mental health.

School communities in which there are meaningful relationships involve all employees — bus drivers and custodians, front-office staff and cafeteria workers. Communities in which every student is embraced as though he or she were an employee’s own child are places that will benefit from an early-warning indicator.

A popular mantra in some quarters behind today’s misguided school security discussions goes something like this: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Actually, the best way to stop a bad guy is to help him not become one. And we can do that not by turning our schools into for-tresses but into communities, not by locking down our students but by lifting them up.

ETIENNE LEGRAND is a leadership adviser at Vivify Performance in Miami, Fla. Twitter: @EtienneRLeGrand