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School Safety

Real or Imagined Fear?

Clemson University

The image of schooling tends to be benign, lulling parents and guardians into an assumption of safety for at least 6 hours each weekday. The complement to safety as an imagined state of schooling contains incidents of school violence and tragedy that feed communities' and parents' primeval fears about the well being of their children. The consequences of imagined safety, along with panic resulting from incidents of school violence or other lapses in school safety, yield school policies and rules that, perversely, may exacerbate community fears. Under the 2001 federal law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the consequences of a public accounting for school safety may have generated more opportunities for public fear and panic as opposed to increasing conditions for school safety and security. The article concludes with strategies, rather than the blunt legislative approach to policies, for mediating public fears by ensuring genuine school safety.

Key Words: persistently dangerous schools • politics of zero tolerance • school-community relations • school safety • school violence

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