Student attitudes about school safety and their implications for safe school reform

All students experience the detrimental effects of delinquency regardless of whether they engage in delinquent acts or not. The management of student delinquency influences a school's ability to productively engage in teaching and learning. High rates of student delinquency create a school climate that undermines student learning and achievement and one in which students are afraid of getting hurt. Many safe school policies have been effective in lowering levels of student delinquency and student victimization by such peer delinquency at school. However, the effect of these policies on student attitudes about their safety at school is less clear. Both feeling unsafe and being unsafe at school have dire academic, social and personal consequences for students. Unfortunately, some safe school policies deflate student attitudes about their safety at school while making them safer (e.g., metal detectors).;Both aspects of student safety---students' attitudes about their safety at school and the level of student delinquency at their schools---are essential to positive student outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I focus this work on students' attitudes about their safety at school. Applying social learning and social cognitive theoretical perspectives, I examine attitude formation and the benefits to students of feeling safe at school, net of those of attending a school with a low level of student delinquency. I also consider the effects of common safe school policies (e.g., security guards, metal detectors) on students' attitudes about their safety at school and the level of student delinquency at their schools. Among the related key findings is that, controlling for the level of student delinquency at their schools, students at schools where there are security guards or metal detectors report feeling significantly less safe at school than do students at schools without these interventions. This is particularly important given that students who feel safe at school academically outperform their peers and report higher levels of school connectedness. Lastly, I present evidence to suggest that efforts to improve students' attitudes about their safety at school may contribute to reductions in student delinquency school-wide over time.