My Literature Review

Students always ask me what it is that I have do in my master's program. Here is just a sample of what type of writing I have to do. The rest is all jump ropes and koosh balls but I will explain that later.

Mario Landeros
Paper #1
EDLP 201
Dr. Reveles

Paper #1 – School Safety in Secondary Education

In thinking about the future of education one thing is very important to consider. In order for students to succeed we must provide a safe school environment. School safety is on the mind of teachers, staff, parents and students. As future leaders of our schools it is crucial to understand that integral dynamic. No school is immune to these problems be it rural, suburban, or urban. Even elementary schools face the same issues as secondary schools. This literature review will focus on the effects of an unsafe school environment at the secondary level.

The issues introduced by Jianping Shen (1997) are: physical conflicts among students, robbery or theft, student use of alcohol and student drug abuse. In addition Shen (1997) discusses matters related to the magnitude of keeping a safe physical environment. The matters that can be categorized in the area are: vandalism of school property, student possession of weapons and verbal abuse of teachers. Elizabeth Davies, Kathryn Chandler and Mary Jo Nolin (1996) reported that Substantial percentages of U.S. students in grades 6-12 face crime or threats at school or on the way to or from school.

In the article “Victimization at School” many dreadful statistics are given from a study conducted by Westat for the National Center for Education Statistics. One of the many statistics brought to light in this articles is “most students (71%) in grades 6-12 reported having knowledge of bullying, physical attack, or robbery at their schools during the current school year” (Chandler, Davies& Nolin, 217). Chandler, Davies, & Nolin (1996) provided a breadth of statistics that displayed that school safety spreads across race, sex, drugs and alcohol. One of the more fascinating statistics presented by Chandler, Davies & Nolin (1996) is: “Seventy-one percent of male and seventy percent of female students reported knowing about bullying, physical attack, or robbery at school; witnessing these events and worrying about them also did not differ by the sex of the student” (pg. 218).

Shen (1997) noted that “more than 25 percent of the teachers considered verbal abuse of teachers and student drug and alcohol abuse as serious or moderately serious.” (pg. 18). While Shen (1997) observes that teachers are equally under threat as students, he also notes that teachers play a vital leadership role in their schools. Shen (1997) remarks schools, teachers and community members “are playing an increasingly important role in student’s lives” (pg 20). Shen (1997) provides more evidence to this debate by stating “For some students, schools are the only safe havens in their lives” (pg. 20).

The writer understands that the issue of school safety has just been faintly introduced by the authors Shen and Chandler, Davies, & Nolin works. But the issue as declared by Shen (1997) is that “public schools have been becoming less and less safe” (pg. 20). The focus of teachers of the public school system is to make our schools a safe place to allow our students to flourish where they might have not otherwise with the assistance of a safe school environment.