Question

Summarize the different approach in school safety such as metal detectors arm guard and 0 tolerance Policies

Answer 1

Metal detectors arm guard

• metal detectors and security cameras, banned backpacks, required students to carry IDs and posted police in the hallways – all in the name of keeping students safe.

• Some education advocates argue that efforts to increase school security by using equipment such as metal detectors and by increasing the presence of security personnel have reduced trust between school administrators, teachers, and students, and have led to increased numbers of student arrests.

• Some students report having to wait in line outside in the snow and rain to get through metal detectors before school. The security bottleneck can make students late to class. Other students say they feel disrespected by security officers and by the security process in general. All these factors can lead to an altered school environment, especially for black and brown students: A ProPublica survey found that high school students of color are nearly three times more likely than white students to have to get through a metal detector at school.

• The public, of course, has demanded tougher school safety policies; more armed school cops, anonymous telephone tip lines, more metal detectors, TV cameras and costly high-tech surveillance gadgets, leaving little or no money for school psychologists and counselors who today are far outnumbered by school cops.

zero-tolerance policy

• Such rigorous rules offer schools little or no flexibility in responding to student infractions related to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, violence, and weapons. These policies have been developed by both local school districts and several state legislatures, and in most cases, students who violate such policies must be expelled.

• Zero-tolerance policies are characterized by the frequent use of exclusionary sanctions, such as suspension and expulsion, as well as a discipline code that provides administrators and teachers little discretion in individualizing responses to incidents. Under a regime of zero tolerance, even low-level infractions are often met with harsh punishment. Research shows that such policies often have the effect of punishing those students who are most in need of academic or mental health supports because it is typically the most disadvantaged students who engage in rule-breaking behavior or are pushed out by schools

• Many school districts embraced the zero-tolerance mindset as a pathway to remove subjective influences on student discipline, relieve educators of exercising deliberation and critical judgments and remove dangerous students while simultaneously sending a strong message of deterrence to others

• when students are viewed as having violent tendencies, they are treated as potential offenders by security officers, which can trigger negative behaviors from students.

• zero tolerance mindset in public schools and the use of school security guards to mediate against problematic student behaviors may have, inadvertently, contributed further to the discipline gap and the school-to-prison pipeline. However, since there is a lack of empirical research to prove or disprove the effects zero tolerance policies and school policing practices have on student behavioral outcomes.

- zero tolerance mindset where the removal of criminals from the general populous through one-strike measures supersedes efforts to determine the root causes of their behaviors