Safe Schools and Students' Rights

Revision with unchanged content. In the last couple decades our public schools have increasingly become security-based in the wake of the recent school shootings. In academic circles this recent amalgamation of events and activities has been referred to as the safe schools movement. This study explores the nature of the safe schools movement as a social movement and examines its effects on the rights of public school students through a case study. Findings indicate that the safe schools movement has diminished the rights of public school students due to the policies enacted by schools to ensure school safety. On a national level and likewise in this case, the rates of suspensions and expulsions increased while the violence and the incidents producing suspension decreased. Judicial decisions also reveal school officials are afforded wide latitude in conducting searches of students, and as such, students' rights have eroded. This book is addressed to those in the fields of education, political science, sociology and law. Moreover, school administrators would be well served to read this book since it taps into many issues faced everyday in our public schools.