School safety is a wicked problem due to shifting needs and available information, the diverse actors affected and involved, fluctuating budgetary demands and ramifications, and relations to broader social and political issues. School safety challenges encompass a range of factors,…
School safety is a wicked problem due to shifting needs and available information, the diverse actors affected and involved, fluctuating budgetary demands and ramifications, and relations to broader social and political issues. School safety challenges encompass a range of factors, including threats of violence and fears related to school shootings, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student mental health and well-being, and research and rhetoric on punitive discipline practices and the school-to-prison nexus, especially regarding the use of School Resource Officers (SROs). Following the murder of George Floyd by police in the Summer of 2020 and the subsequent civil unrest, several school districts across the United States began to reconsider the use of police on campuses, with some choosing not to renew contracts with police departments for SROs. In most cases, school district leaders (e.g., governing boards or superintendency) unilaterally made this decision without authentic school community input or participation in inclusive processes and shared decision-making opportunities. Phoenix Union High School District (PXU), a diverse, urban high school-only district that serves 25,000 students, was one of those districts that did not renew its contract with the local police department for SROs. Instead, PXU undertook efforts to reimagine school safety through two parallel participatory processes: School Participatory Budgeting (PB) and a Safety Committee. Drawing from the literature on school safety, participatory governance, and student voice, I explore school safety's historical and current landscape, specifically the use of SROs and punitive discipline measures, alongside methods of participatory governance within K-12 educational institutions and the benefits, challenges, and implications of student voice in shared decision-making processes. I then chronicle the two processes implemented in PXU using the Empowered Deliberative Democracy (EDD) conceptual framework and a case study methodology. I analyze and discuss the tensions and the transformative potential of participatory processes that include student and school community voices in finding solutions to difficult challenges. In conclusion, I summarize the case study and raise recommendations for using participatory processes to address wicked problems in K-12 educational institutions.
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Does school participatory budgeting (SPB) increase students’ political efficacy? SPB, which is implemented in thousands of schools around the world, is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making in which students determine how to spend a portion of the school’s…
Does school participatory budgeting (SPB) increase students’ political efficacy? SPB, which is implemented in thousands of schools around the world, is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making in which students determine how to spend a portion of the school’s budget. We examined the impact of SPB on political efficacy in one middle school in Arizona. Our participants’ (n = 28) responses on survey items designed to measure self-perceived growth in political efficacy indicated a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.46), suggesting that SPB is an effective approach to civic pedagogy, with promising prospects for developing students’ political efficacy.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
