COMMERCE CITY — Colorado educational changes include new standards, assessments and ways to evaluate teachers — but none of that matters if students feel unsafe.
“Students can’t learn if they don’t feel safe,” said Assistant Deputy Education Secretary Kevin Jennings in the keynote speech at the School Safety and Violence Prevention Conference taking place this week at Adams City High School. Jennings heads the federal Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and is on a mission to eliminate bullying, which, he says, studies show touches about one in three students.
“The idea that we have to accept this as a rite of passage is simply wrong,” he said, adding that the prevalence of bullying is a much bigger problem than any other type of school violence.
“What most kids worry about is not the horrific events that make the evening news,” he said. “It is the daily incivil behavior, bullying and social exclusion.”
Students skip class, stay home from school or avoid joining activities because of bullying, he said. This can lead to chronic educational and emotional problems that can affect people throughout their lives.
The U.S. Education Department is offering up to five states $120 million over four years in a competitive grant to develop data systems that measure school climate.
Studies show that middle school is the worst time for bullying — with 42.9 percent of students in sixth grade reporting being bullied.
Research also shows that blacks and Latinos feel less safe at school than whites. Boys tend to resort to more name-calling with a religious or racial focus, and girls engage more in rumors or social isolation of their peers.
Four in 10 students in a 2005 study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network reported being ridiculed for their appearance or body size. The next most common reason for frequent harassment is sexual orientation.
And students with disabilities are much more likely to be bullied than their peers, Jennings said.
“What can we do?” he asked. “There is no single magic bullet.”
Districts need clear policies, and schools need support from administrators.
“We need to constantly reinforce with kids what is acceptable and what is unacceptable,” he said. “We need to change practices, teach kids different ways to interact. We have to make the time to incorporate these changes and train your staff how to deal with these problems. If you just do one, you will fail. It must be a team effort.”
Adams County District Attorney Don Quick — who founded the Adams County Youth Initiative, which focuses on decreasing delinquency and substance abuse among teens — said addressing these key safety issues is important to make sure students stay in school.
“Forty percent of people who were bullies have assault records by age 25. Sixty-eight percent of inmates in Colorado Department of Corrections were dropouts,” he said. “This is not just a school issue; it’s a community issue and a law enforcement issue.”
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, integrating school climate was incorrectly listed as a U.S. Department of Education goal through Title IX. It is no longer a department goal.
