Safety

 

Schools have become a place that families, staff and students are highly concerned over safety. Rightfully so, there are so many accounts of individuals seeking out schools to cause harm. I was a senior in high school when the Columbine shootings occurred, at that point in time no one thought that could happen in a school. We were naive to believe that threats were only from the outside. However, as a seventeen year old kid, I felt very far removed from what was happening in Colorado. I still believed that nothing like that could happen at my school. However, now with the almost weekly account of violence against our schools and the horrific happenings we see on the news constantly, we can never truly feel safe or trust the world around us. 

I think children and teenagers feel invincible. I see that with my own children; they argue about where I allow them to go, how late I'll let them stay out or who I allow them to be with. They will yell at me, saying that I don't trust them. But, it's not about me not trusting THEM, it is about me not trusting the world around them. 

When I think about where I most feel safe, where I take myself during my meditations, is sitting near a still lake, with the quiet of nature, the absence of other people, sounds of traffic and TV or social media. I'm watching the light movement of the waves, feeling a slight breeze on my skin, hear a distance song bird and smell the clean water, crisp grasses and trees. I'm able to release tension in shoulders, remove my tongue from the top of my mouth and quiet my mind with the constant worries and anxieties that pop into my thoughts. No wonder that the constant stimulus of dangers, changes, negativities, immediate decisions, opinions of others and disagreements can cause us to feel unsafe and overwhelmed.   

There are several different types of safety: physical safety, psychological safety, emotional safety, social safety and moral safety. As a school leader it is critical to consider all of these levels of safety when interacting with staff, students and families. 

"Our brains are built for survival. We are constantly scanning the environment and comparing what we sense and feel to past experiences of danger or threat.  In fact, science has revealed that without a sense of safety, our pre-frontal cortex cannot develop or use the executive functions needed to carry out decision making, goal setting, planning, task initiation and self-control." Cheryl Step

When as school leaders we have to make decisions that will impact the physical safety of our school community, it is never an easy choice on how to proceed. There are environments and organizations that will choose to ignore challenges to safety and others that will communicate and address it head on. The communication around a safety concern is always the fine line that has to be navigated, hopefully with the help of others and the confidence in the school community. It can be hard to not take personally the gossip and chatter that will revolve around the decisions that you make or the need for specific information. I completely understand, because our children are our hearts living outside of our bodies. But it is still hard to explain to an emotional, sometimes irrational parent, that they can't have every tiny bit of information because of laws, or the continuation of the investigation or that everyone deserves protections, even an offender, no matter the size of the offence. 

Physiological safety is a totally different type of situation that school leaders need to navigate. I find that the development of physiological safety pertains to the teams that you lead and how you ensure that the people that you lead feel seen, heard and empowered to take risks, learn from each other and push ideas to make the school or organization better. 

Inclusion safety is developing an organizational environment that encourages diversity, diversity of the individuals that work there, diversity of their experiences and diversity of their ideas. If your teams consists of all the same people, then the ideas and solutions will always just be the same. The most dangerous phrase to organizations is "We've always done it this way". Yes, we have to respect tradition and recognize experience and history. But if we are just doing things because it is comfortable and not reflecting on reasons outside of ourself, then opportunities for improvement and innovations will stop. 

Learner safety is recognizing that mistakes are not setbacks, but opportunities for improvement. As a leader, you will not have all the answers, you are going to make mistakes. The key element is to take ownership of those mistakes and setbacks, recognize when a change needs to happen and use your teams to find a new solution. I love when I have teachers come to me with an idea for instruction, club/fundraiser or solution to support an individual student. I always want them to go for it!!! "Try it - if it doesn't work, then we go back to the drawing board". As leaders we can't be micromanagers, we need to allow for the successes and failures to happen. The important thing is that we learn from them, be it to continue that practice or alter it to make it better. 

Contributor safety is really about empowerment, ownership and shared leadership. As a leader, if you are the only one contributing or adding to agendas or if you only allow for your ideas and procedures, then you are stifling the leadership capabilities of those within your organization. Some decisions do have to made as a sole contributor, however the more opportunities that you have for collective conversations and decision making, the more buy in and support you will receive. 

Challenger safety can be very difficult for leaders to understand. There is a fine line between someone in your organization challenging all your decisions in a respectful and solution development kind of way or in a constant complaining and negative "pot stirring" way. I feel its very important for everyone to share their opinion or question decisions, it can be very hard not to take these push backs personally. I appreciate someone who can challenge my crazy ideas, or encourage me to think about the details (since I'm more of a whole to part thinker). However, when someone exaggerates or only thinks of themselves instead of the collective, then how to shut down that behavior and encourage more solution seeing challenges can be difficult to promote, because people can get sucked into the drama. It is the leaders job to not allow the drama to deter the ultimate goal of the organization, but not to ignore the drama because that can affect the culture of the organization. 

"The job of a leader is not to protect their team from discomfort. It’s to protect them from harm—and to help motivate them to push through the discomfort and harness it for growth." - Shane Stone

When you have the foundations of physical and psychological safety within your organization, then that allows for emotional, social and moral safety to be recognized and encouraged. Right now, I feel the physical and psychological safety is where my current focus lays for my staff, students and community. Everyday I try to make decisions and showcase my actions to recognize the need for these areas of safety as well as support those ideals within myself. It takes time, reflection and constantly staying positive, calm and consistent; which can be absolutely exhausting, but that is what we do!!!