School Environment

Culture and Community

"Our students want to be accepted and respected."

A school environment that promotes safety, caring, understanding and is a well-rounded learning environment is one of the most important aspects of creating a school culture and community.  It is not only inviting to its students, but to educators, the students' families, the community and its business partners.

The school environment is not just important to the well-being of the students, but to the staff as well. The staff and students should feel that they will not be persecuted because of their race, religion or sexual orientation.  That they have a voice in the school and it is respected by all who are part of the school culture.

Bullying, harassment, physical or sexual and verbal abuse would not be acceptable in a great school environment.  It would promote learning and collaboration and tolerance. Students and educators listen to each other and understand the issues that each face as they traverse the educational system.

Students are encouraged to be risk-takers and take control of their own learning through the environment.  They do not fear the sadness that comes from failure or frustration because they have learned how to circumvent or ways of dealing with it without it being self-demeaning.  Students feel valued and have a place where they are decision-makers.

In my school we have proactive programs that addresses bullying, verbal abuse, harassment and other negative actions that may affect a student’s physical and emotional well-being. Students want to know that they are accepted and respected.

This is utmost important in a special needs environment.  I find that this type of student population has more occurrences with these types of social incidents, more than the general education population.  I believe that statistics are less known about our student population due to the fact that it is rarely reported because of our student’s inability to self-advocate.

In our presentations at PTA meetings and special events, we find that the community itself is more acceptable of our students than student population who commutes into the school.  There seems to be less acceptance from these students than students who live in the neighborhood and seem to have a more personal and cultural relationship with our students (there are four different schools sharing the building, including one charter school and many of the students come from different neighborhoods and parts of the city).

But we are trying to reach out to sister schools, especially the Charter school since they are unfamiliar with having interactions with our students like the Public School General Education population (currently Charter schools do not have any special need students in their population of moderate or severe diagnosis).  So far this has been successful, but it has taken a lot of collaborative meetings, community meetings and student council meetings to try and change the current school culture of segregation between disabled and non-disabled students.

It is my believe that with cooperation from all students, community leaders, families and educators we can create a caring and healthy learning environment for our students.  A place where all students are "accepted and respected".

Here is an article on "School Bullying and Special Needs Population".
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/bullying-and-special-needs-a-silent-epidemic-2454467.html