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Reimagining School Safety

The notion of school safety is often only concerned with physical harm, but true safety is much more complex. Measures we take to “harden” our schools’ perimeters to protect from external attackers, might also scare and isolate students and families. Students who have experienced or witnessed abuse by police officers might feel less safe with a law enforcement presence in the building. The steps we take to protect against the threat of virus infections can at times traumatize students and teachers. How might we remember our fundamental aim to nourish learning for all students? How can our safety plans contribute to the wellbeing of all our students?

Questions To Your Answers About School Safety

This set of school safety questions is a collaboration tool for students, parents, teachers, administrators, and everyone invested in creating safe schools. The questions are designed to help us think about safety in holistic and creative ways.

There is no “right” way to use these questions. Just explore and sincerely answer the questions – this could be alone or with a group of colleagues, students, and/or community members. You can go in order and take them as they come or choose one you want to dig into first. Shuffle the questions to see them in a new way. Feel free to skip over some and come back to them later. The only rule is to explore, consider and imagine!

And if you’d like some guidance or examples on how you might use these questions, check out our Activity Guide.

On the top right of this page, you will find options to download these questions in color or black and white, to print and post up. Or you can also view the questions online.

Learn more at our Reimagine School Safety website