Flight to Safety in Deindustrialized Cities: Perceptions of School Safety in Charter and Public Schools in Detroit,Michigan

Abstract

Safety is one of the primary reasons why parents report seeking out a school of choice in depressed cities with a high proportion of charter schools. However, little empirical research has examined how parents assess school safety in these settings. This study explores factors that parents associate with school safety in Detroit, Michigan by conducting semi-structured interviews with parents (n = 31) in both charter and public schools. To contextualize parents’ perceptions of school safety, teachers (n = 23) were also interviewed. Findings indicate that parental perceptions of safety were shaped by school building conditions, school disciplinary environment, school-based parental involvement, student selection, and school location. These perceived indicators of safety suggest that components of school climate may be important for raising perceptions of safety in challenging contexts where school safety is a pressing concern.

Keywords

charter schools educational policy school choice urban education

Safety has been at the forefront of school reforms for decades (Bosworth, Ford, & Hernandaz, 2011; Lacoe, 2015). Resulting safety initiatives have transformed many schools, drastically increasing the use of formal security, such as police patrols, security officers, metal detectors, physical barriers, and video surveillance (Mowen, 2015). School officials have also implemented strict disciplinary measures over the years, employing zero-tolerance policies to expel students committing serious offenses on school grounds (Casella, 2006). More recent approaches have pursued less punitive approaches through violence prevention and restorative justice programs (Jones et al., 2009). Despite these persistent efforts to improve school safety, school violence and crime remain ongoing concerns in a large number of cities across the United States (Robers, Zhang, & Truman, 2012).

As an alternative strategy, charter schools have been promoted as a way to provide students with an opportunity to attend a safe school (Astor, Guerra, & Van Acker, 2010; Hamlin, 2017a; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). In deindustrialized cities facing high rates of crime, urban blight, and concentrated poverty (Sugrue, 2014), charter school enrollments have grown at a rapid pace with families identifying safety as one of the primary reasons for opting for a charter school (Bell, 2007; Buckley & Schneider, 2009; Stewart & Wolf, 2012). This prioritization of school safety is an important rationale in school settings where student victimization is high. Exposure to violence and criminal activity in school may have detrimental effects on mental health, socioemotional development, and academic performance (Ozer & Weinstein, 2004). Even when a student is not directly harmed, fear of potential victimization in school can have equally negative consequences for student outcomes (Burdick-Will, Keels, & Schuble, 2013; Kirk & Sampson, 2011).

When parents assess school safety, different factors may shape their perceptions of safety. While levels of school crime and violence appear to be overt influences, structural conditions of the school building, student conduct, home–school relationships, and overall school climate may greatly affect perceptions of school safety (Forsyth, Adams, & Hoy, 2011; Gottfredson, Gottfredson, Payne, & Gottfredson, 2005; Skiba, Simmons, Peterson, & Forde, 2006; Skogan, 2015). Neighborhood conditions around the school may also be relevant (Bell, 2009). In neighborhoods with high rates of crime and urban blight, criminal activity may spill over into schools while blighted property may signal a lack of neighborhood safety, heightening fear of victimization on school grounds and along student commutes (Bell, 2007). Whether parents associate these factors with school safety when opting for charter schools is uncertain. Studies suggest different characteristics of charter schools that may influence safety perceptions, including strict behavioral policies (Golann, 2015), highly structured school routines (Cheng, Hitt, Kisida, & Mills, 2017), student selection and removal practices (Hoxby & Murarka, 2008), and locating schools in less blighted and safer sections of a city (Burdick-Will et al., 2013). However, these potential influences are largely speculative given the lack of research investigating parents’ perceptions of school safety in challenging contexts with extensive school choice.

This study explores factors parents associate with school safety by undertaking interviews with parents of K-12 students (n = 31) in Detroit, Michigan. To gain a thorough understanding of parents’ safety perceptions in the study setting, interviews covered parents with children in charter and public schools. Parents’ perceptions of safety in cities where school safety is a priority may also have considerable significance as parents are largely responsible for school selection (Buckley & Schneider, 2009; Cowen, 2010; Stewart & Wolf, 2012). To contextualize parents’ perceptions of school safety, interviews with teachers (n = 23) were also performed. Among Detroit’s 98 charter and 106 public schools, parent and teacher interviews in this study covered 15 charter and 18 public schools in six of the city’s seven electoral districts. It is important to note that as a qualitative analysis of a modest sample of parents and teachers in a single city, findings presented in this study are not generalizable. Interviews may further be subject to selection bias as information could only be gathered from parents and teachers who were willing to participate in the study. Despite these limitations, this in-depth analysis of perceived school safety investigates a key driver of school choice processes (Bosworth et al., 2011). This work may thus help to shed light on strategies for enhancing perceived school safety while extending knowledge of local priorities for schools in depressed cities where students tend to encounter substantial barriers to academic and life success.

Deindustrialized Cities and Charter School Expansion

The term “deindustrialized city” has come to signify industrial decline, population loss, and urban decay occurring over the past half century in cities that were once fueled by a prosperous manufacturing sector (Connolly, 2010). The effects of deindustrialization have contributed to crime, poverty, family dissolution, and other adverse social circumstances (Connolly, 2010). Influenced by these trends, schools have experienced low achievement, while victimization and crime on school grounds have remained high (Eaton et al., 2012; Skogan, 2015). Promising safer schools and improved academic performance, charter schools have swept through many impoverished deindustrialized cities over the past 25 years. Deindustrialized cities, such as Cleveland, OH, Gary, IN, and Flint, MI, enroll between 30% and 50% of all students in charter schools (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools [NAPCS], 2014).

The city of Detroit, Michigan is emblematic of these impoverished deindustrialized cities where charter schools maintain a large share of student enrollments. Over the past half century, Detroit’s population dropped by 1.3 million people to under 700,000 today (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Urban decay has become widespread with nearly one-third of the city remaining covered by vacant land and abandoned structures despite recent regeneration of the city’s downtown core (Detroit Residential Parcel Survey, 2010). Demographically, 83% of the city’s youth are African American and 57% live below the poverty line (Stewart & Wolf, 2012). Nearly 86% of Detroit residents report less than a bachelor’s degree and more than 60% of families are headed by single females. Detroit has also consistently recorded a very high violent crime rate (Raleigh & Galster, 2015).

These challenges have placed pressures on school safety. Crime and violence have routinely permeated the city’s schools (Eaton et al., 2012). A quarter of Detroit’s high-school students report being exposed to violence on a daily basis, and nearly 40% report having had a relative or friend shot within a 12-month period (Detroit Youth Violence Prevention Initiative, 2013). To combat youth violence, use of policing, security, video surveillance, and violence prevention programs have steadily increased (Detroit Public Schools [DPS], 2013). In Detroit, safety-seeking appears to have contributed considerably to the growth of charter schools. Since the onset of school choice reforms in the mid-1990s, parents have cited safety as one of the primary reasons for opting for a charter school, and more than half of all students residing in Detroit now attend a charter school (Bell, 2007; NAPCS, 2014; Stewart & Wolf, 2012).

Perceived School Safety

Perceived school safety is an important measure of school safety (Hanson & Voight, 2014; Skiba et al., 2006). Perceptions of safety are closely related to actual rates of violence and crime in school that have shown negative associations with a broad range of student outcomes, including academic performance, attendance, physical health, and social and psychological functioning (Neiman & Hill, 2011; Ozer & Weinstein, 2004; Schreck & Miller, 2003). Yet, a range of factors may shape perceptions of school safety. The most overt influences are school rates of violence, crime, and bullying. These indicators may become particularly salient in cities with high crime rates where students are more likely to report victimization and exposure to severe forms of violence that can have lasting negative consequences (Robers et al., 2012; Skiba et al., 2006).

Fear of victimization may further affect school safety perceptions. Importantly, whether or not a student has had direct exposure to violence or crime in school, the perception alone that a school is unsafe may trigger stress, depression, and absenteeism (Burdick-Will et al., 2013; Johnson, 2009). Classroom disruptions, delinquent activity in hallways, and poor student–teacher relationships may reduce perceived school safety in instances in which actual physical victimization has not occurred (Gottfredson et al., 2005). Other symbolic cues may contribute to safety perceptions. Conditions of school buildings, for instance, may send signals about safety (Bell, 2007). Physical decay, graffiti, and disorganized school facilities can raise fear of crime and violence by indicating a lack of social control (Kirk & Sampson, 2011). School approaches to safety may also have unintended effects on how safety is perceived. Heavy security, police patrols, metal detectors, physical barriers, and video surveillance may reduce actual rates of victimization while simultaneously lowering perceptions of school safety (Cornell & Mayer, 2010; Schreck & Miller, 2003; Skiba et al., 2006). Potential adverse consequences of such safety measures have led some to emphasize school climate as a mechanism for enhancing school safety (Forsyth et al., 2011; Skiba et al., 2006).

Beyond school grounds, neighborhood influences may help to explain perceptions of safety. Schools set in neighborhoods with substantial crime, poverty, and structural blight may face greater obstacles to ensuring a safe learning environment as nearby gang activity and criminal behavior may spill over from neighborhoods into schools (Kirk & Sampson, 2011). Structural blight near a school may create a perception of low social control that leads to a heightened sense of potential victimization (Bell, 2007; Skogan, 2015). Adding to these challenges, there may be fewer collective neighborhood resources for schools to access in these areas, limiting capacity to confront problems of youth crime and violence (Kirk & Sampson, 2011).

Charter Schools and Perceived School Safety

School safety appears to be a priority in K-12 school selection processes in high-crime deindustrialized cities (Center for Research on Education Outcomes, 2014; Stewart & Wolf, 2012). In these cities, charter schools are not only expected to be responsive to safety concerns to compete for students but also thought to possess the operational flexibility to develop innovative safety strategies (Lubienski & Lubienski, 2013; Shober, Manna, & Witte, 2006). In evaluating these theoretical claims, descriptive comparisons of charter and public schools using national and city-level surveys show that school personnel and students report higher perceived school safety in charter schools (Christensen, 2007; Eden, 2017; Hamlin, 2017a). In Detroit, charter school students reported feeling safer in school than their public-school peers, but the mechanisms underlying this difference were unclear (Hamlin, 2017a).

School climate in charter schools may be a significant factor. Research exploring charter schools serving high-needs students, for example, has reported an emphasis on highly disciplined and well-maintained learning environments, which may increase perceptions of safety by signaling greater social control (Cheng et al., 2017; Golann, 2015; Whitman, 2008). Home–school partnerships may be another key facet of perceived school safety by giving rise to familiarity within the school community (Bifulco & Ladd, 2006; Hamlin, 2017b). In a qualitative study, Smith, Wohlstetter, Kuzin, and De Pedro (2011) report that charter schools tend to stress home–school partnerships, using home visits, family nights, incentives, and contracts requiring parent service at school. In addition to these strategies, flexibility in the choice of school location may enable charter schools to establish operations in sections of a city with less crime and urban decay, thereby decreasing fear of victimization without undertaking any specific school safety strategies (Burdick-Will et al., 2013; Gulosino & Lubienski, 2011; Smrekar & Honey, 2015).

Charter schools could also benefit from student selection dynamics (Davies & Aurini, 2011). For schools stressing discipline, strict enforcement of rules may produce high rates of expulsion and attrition for students with behavioral problems (Welner, 2013; Zimmer & Guarino, 2013). Furthermore, in high-poverty settings, parents who are able to participate in school choice may have greater access to resources and higher motivation, conferring an advantage to charter schools in maintaining a safe learning environment (Hamlin, 2017b). While varying school, neighborhood, and selection mechanisms may shape parents’ perceptions of safety, little research has explored the influence of these factors on school safety perceptions in high-choice cities.

Method

To investigate factors associated with perceived school safety, this study asks the following question: how do parents assess safety in public and charter schools? Semi-structured interviews with parents (n = 31) constituted the primary source of data. There were two related reasons for examining parents’ perceptions of school safety. First, parents tend to be the decision makers in school selection processes (Cowen, 2010; Schneider, Teske, & Marschall, 2000; Stewart & Wolf, 2012). Second, parents have consistently identified school safety as one of the main reasons for seeking out a school of choice (Buckley & Schneider, 2009; Cowen, 2010; Stewart & Wolf, 2012). Parents with children in both charter and public schools were interviewed to gain a deeper understanding of parental safety considerations in a high-choice setting. Interviews with teachers (n = 23) were also undertaken to contextualize data collected on parents’ safety perceptions. For example, interviews with teachers helped to support parents’ claims about the behavioral climate in schools, school building conditions, and school-based parental involvement. Teacher interviews provided insight into how schools might shape student bodies through expulsion or subtle “counseling out” strategies. Interviews were conducted in the spring and summer of 2016 and winter of 2017. Sixty-five percent of these interviews covered at least one parent and one teacher in the same school.

Prior to conducting interviews, the researcher used publicly available data from the Michigan Department of Education to create profiles for each of Detroit’s public and charter schools, collecting information on school type, location, grade levels, enrollments, and student racial and demographic characteristics. In all, 40 school sites from each of Detroit’s seven electoral districts were then randomly chosen for visits. Interviews covered both charter and public schools in six of these districts. Table 1 shows that 33 schools (15 charter schools and 18 public schools) were represented among Detroit’s population of 204 schools (98 charter schools and 106 public schools). Under the public school category were also two selective-enrollment public schools that constitute some of Detroit’s highest performing schools. These schools have requirements for entry, such as an application, a minimum grade point average, and an entrance examination. Corresponding to citywide school demographics, Table 1 demonstrates that charter and public schools in the sample have high rates of economically disadvantaged African American students (Stewart & Wolf, 2012). Across grade levels in Table 1, the majority of schools (68%) are primary schools. Previous research has found that incidents of victimization in school are more likely to occur among middle school students (Neiman & Hill, 2011), but factors associated with safety perceptions in this study were largely similar at primary and secondary levels, excepting several parents with younger children attending K-8 schools who reported being anxious about their children attending school with older middle-school-aged students.

Table 1.

Schools Represented by Parent and Teacher Interviews.

School	Grade level	Type	African American^a (%)	Economically disadvantaged (%)	School size^b
School 1	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	80% or higher	Large
School 2	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 3^c	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	70% of higher	Medium
School 4^c	Secondary	Charter	90% or higher	70% of higher	Medium
School 5	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	80% or higher	Medium
School 6	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	70% of higher	Medium
School 7^c	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	70% of higher	Small
School 8	Primary	Charter	70% of higher	80% or higher	Large
School 9	Secondary	Charter	80% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 10	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Large
School 11	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 12^c	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 13	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Small
School 14	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 15	Secondary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Large
School 16	Primary	Charter	90% or higher	90% or higher	Medium
School 17	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Medium
School 18	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Medium
School 19	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	70% of higher	Small
School 20	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	70% of higher	Large
School 21	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Medium
School 22	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Small
School 23^c	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	70% of higher	Medium
School 24	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Large
School 25	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	90% or higher	Small
School 26	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Small
School 27	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	70% of higher	Small
School 28	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Medium
School 29	Secondary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Small
School 30	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Small
School 31	Primary	Neighborhood public	90% or higher	80% or higher	Small
School 32	Secondary	Selective public	80% or higher	Less than 70%	Large
School 33	Primary	Selective public	80% or higher	70% of higher	Medium

To ensure participant confidentiality, rounded figures for school size, percentage economically disadvantaged, and percentage of African American students are presented. Economic disadvantage refers to the percentage of students receiving free and reduced priced lunch.

School enrollment: small—400 or less; medium—401-750; large—751 or higher (Lee & Loeb, 2000).

Schools where two separate parent interviews were done.

Parents were recruited for interviews in-person during site visits, primarily during pick-up and drop-off times. Table 2 presents a breakdown of the parent and teacher interviews by school type. Each parent participant was African American and all were mothers, excluding one interview with a grandmother and four interviews with fathers. These interviews averaged 30 min. Parents were asked about their priorities when selecting a school, the level of school safety at their current school, characteristics that make their school safe/unsafe, the rationale behind these characteristics, commutes to and from school, neighborhood influences on safety, specific school safety strategies, and parental involvement. Interviews with teachers were conducted by telephone and were generally 45 min in duration though several interviews reached 2 hr. Teachers were mainly recruited through social networking websites and school visits. Teachers were asked about school safety strategies, parental involvement strategies, school climate and location, student attrition, and school expulsion policies.

Table 2.

Semi-Structured Interviews by School Type.

School type	Interviews
School type	Parents	Teachers
Traditional public schools
Neighborhood public	12	10
Selective public	2	2
Charter schools	17	11
Total	31	23

Note. Although a large number of Detroit’s residents attend charter and public schools outside of Detroit through inter-district school policies (Gulosino & Lubienski, 2011), only schools operating within the city limits of Detroit were examined in this study.

Data Analysis

A total of 20 a priori codes were initially developed through a review of findings from previous research (e.g., Bell, 2007; Golann, 2015; Kirk & Sampson, 2011; Lacoe, 2015; Schreck & Miller, 2003; Skogan, 2015). Examples of these codes included “school exterior conditions,” “neighborhood crime,” and “parent participation in school.” Information from interview transcripts was organized under these preliminary codes. Transcriptions were performed for participants’ responses to questions while extraneous information was not transcribed. In an additional round of analysis, 11 emergent codes were created. Examples of these emergent codes were “student attrition,” “bathroom cleanliness,” and “strict adherence to rules.” Similar codes for both parent and teacher interviews were used. However, “school expulsion strategies” and “counseling out” comprised codes that were specific to teacher interviews. In deriving themes, codes were combined, omitted, and revised while comparing information across participants. While patterns aligned closely across different sources of evidence, inconsistent information was found for school expulsion practices in charter schools. This inconsistency prompted additional rounds of analysis, whereby some charter schools were found to serve specific disadvantaged student populations and that schools with these mandates were less likely than other schools of choice to shape their student bodies through expulsion or attrition. Following these analyses, quotes were selected to illustrate identified themes.

Findings

By investigating the factors that parents associate with school safety, school building conditions, school disciplinary environment, school-based parental involvement, student selection, and school location were influences on perceived school safety in both charter and public schools.

School Building Conditions

The structural conditions of the school building were influential to parents’ evaluations of safety. Nine of 16 charter schools in this study were in newer or newly renovated buildings, while four of 15 neighborhood public schools were also in new or newly renovated buildings. The newness of these buildings seemed to symbolize greater safety to parents. A majority of charter school parents mentioned that they inspected the exterior and interior conditions of the school building. Inside buildings, parents reported that when they inspected a prospective school, they looked at the cleanliness of bathrooms, classrooms, and hallways, interpreting these spaces as indicators of school safety. One parent articulated this perceived link between cleanliness and school safety: “I would rate [school] high on safety. Are the bathrooms clean? Is the school clean? I would rate them highly on that” (parent, medium-sized charter primary school, and more than 90% African American and 70% disadvantaged).

However, for parents with children attending schools in older, decaying buildings, parents associated broken plumbing, cracked walls, mold, and buckling floors with a lack of safety. In three neighborhood public schools, poor structural conditions were reportedly responsible for causing actual harm with students being exposed to black mold or struck by falling debris. Several neighborhood public school parents also linked deteriorating school buildings to blight and crime observed in the surrounding neighborhood. By contrast, well-maintained schools were interpreted as safe havens from neighborhood crime and blight.

School disciplinary environment

Parents in charter and public schools connected a school’s behavioral environment to safety. In 10 of 16 charter schools, a reported emphasis on rules and behavioral codes were considered important aspects of school safety. Charter school teachers elaborated on this approach, noting that misconduct received swift attention from school administrators and teachers. In several charter schools, school administrators would regularly patrol school hallways and classrooms, addressing student behavioral issues. Several charter school teachers explained that school administrators placed substantial pressure on teachers to enforce rules, in some cases, openly reprimanding teachers for student misconduct. These expectations for behavior and rule enforcement were further communicated to parents. One teacher explained that a parent would be “required” to come to school, meet with school officials, and sit in the child’s classroom when a child had received multiple behavioral infractions. Three charter school teachers reported that serious offenses related to physical violence and crime were uncommon in their schools and that students would be expelled in these instances. One teacher described the considerable emphasis on discipline in her charter school:

We ran a tight ship. You got infractions if your shirt was untied. Our kids walked in silent lines in the hallway. It was very rigorous. It was almost like boot camp. But you know what? The kids were respectful. They knew what was expected of them. You had to behave and that was it. There was no truancy and if there was, they’d be gone. (Teacher, medium-sized charter primary school, and more than 90% African American and 90% disadvantaged)

Although strict enforcement of behavioral codes in charter schools echoes findings of much previous work, such disciplinary strategies have faced growing scrutiny (Maranto & Ritter, 2014; Whitman, 2008; Zimmer & Guarino, 2013). In this study, the extent to which parents agreed with stricter approaches to student behavior was uncertain. Nevertheless, when opting for charter schools, this type of disciplinary environment seemed to send positive cues to parents about school safety, assuaging concerns about potential school violence, crime, and bullying.

Disciplinary problems and school disorder could also lower parents’ perceptions of safety. In 11 of the 15 neighborhood public schools, parents felt that chaotic hallways, disruptive classrooms, and school crime and violence created a lack of safety. Cases of bullying, violence with weapons, sexual assault, and gang activity in the neighborhood public schools were detailed in numerous participant reflections. One parent described several incidents of gang activity, violence with weapons, and school disorder, summarizing the school’s behavioral climate in the following way:

[Neighborhood public high school]’s like the schools you see on TV. It’s so chaotic—so many fights. That’s what that school is like. You know, the movie “Lean on Me.” That’s how that school is. (Parent, medium-sized neighborhood public high school, and more than 90% African American and 80% disadvantaged)

Teachers articulated severe instances of violence and crime that corresponded with some of the sentiments expressed by parents. Three teachers in neighborhood public schools recalled situations where students had physically attacked or threatened them. One noted that on her first day, a student had threatened her with physical violence, while another reported that she had once stopped a student from drowning a fellow teacher in the toilet of a school bathroom. Violence, drug use, gang activity, and sexual assault in some of Detroit’s tougher schools have been well documented by local and national media, and this reputation seemed to reduce parents’ perceptions of safety.

School-Based Parental Involvement

Participants tied parental involvement in school to perceived school safety. To increase parent participation, many charter schools were purportedly keen to develop parent–teacher and parent–parent relationships. Parents in the majority of charter schools, for instance, reported social events for parents as well as family dinners with the entire school community. One parent described these efforts:

I [have] never seen a school like that. They are very active with the parents. They do parent nights at the school. I wouldn’t think so many people show up but they do. Everything is discussed. They get suggestions from the parents. Kids will come to school with their parent at 6:00 and they eat dinner there. (Parent, large primary charter school, and more than 90% African American and 80% disadvantaged)

Relationship-building strategies seemed to improve perceived safety by increasing familiarity and overall school climate. Some charter schools seemed to capitalize on these relationships by fostering a greater parent presence at school. Several parents and teachers explained that charter schools even “required” parent participation in school events or when dealing with behavioral issues. Charter schools had open-door classroom policies where parents would reportedly walk in and be able to “join class at any time.” Charter school teachers and parents tied forms of in-school parent participation to improvements in student behavior. Three charter schools were reported to have extended employment to parents in food service and administration. Having parents take on these roles appeared to have a knock-on effect for safety perceptions as three parents indicated that having a parent monitoring school hallways, entrances, and parking lots created a sense of comfort and familiarity that formal security officers in these same roles did not create.

With the intention of enhancing school safety, the city’s public school district had increased the number of police and security officers working in schools and expanded video surveillance of school campuses (DPS, 2013). One neighborhood public school parent, however, felt that formal security had done little to improve safety at her child’s school:

[Neighborhood public primary school] is not organized. Their safety is not good. They have security. It’s about getting the right security. Children have come in there with knives. There’s inappropriate behavior with the adults. The police are always there. I can’t stand it; it’s too much. It’s not a good environment. (Parent, medium-sized neighborhood public primary school, more than 90% African American and 80% disadvantaged)

Paradoxically, even though these formal security initiatives may have reduced student victimization at school (Robers et al., 2012), a number of parents and teachers associated these security measures in the city’s public schools with a lack of safety.

Student selection

Student selection dynamics also seemed to be related to school safety perceptions. For selective-enrollment public schools, applications, entrance examinations, grade-point-average requirements were purported barriers to school admission for students with a history of behavioral problems. In six of 15 charter schools, one reported means of shaping the student body was to expel students with chronic disciplinary problems. Although charter schools are hypothetically bound by state protocols for expelling students (Michigan Department of Education, 2016), charter schools were described as having a less restrictive process. To circumvent procedural requirements, charter schools might also “counsel out” students deemed as being prone to behavioral problems. One charter school teacher detailed how a parent of a highly disruptive student might be told that the school was not a good fit for the child. Along with these mechanisms, perceptions of the disciplinary environment allowed charter schools to deter students prone to misconduct. Because charter schools were generally perceived as having stricter disciplinary and behavioral demands, several teachers explained that students with behavioral problems were unlikely to seek enrollment at a charter school, preferring to avoid the stricter discipline that they would encounter. One charter school teacher summarized how some charter schools would shape their student bodies:

Kids get weeded out. We follow an expulsion protocol. It’s not a one-time, and you are out. There are measures put in place. There is remediation. It’s governed by state law. But after that protocol has been completed and a kid keeps getting suspended, they are not readmitted to the school. And we are a good charter school so the knuckleheads that don’t want to be held to a high standard, don’t come here. (Teacher, medium-sized charter high school, and more than 90% African American and 70% disadvantaged)

Perceived characteristics of the student body were highly important to parents’ assessments of safety. Parents observed students at a school, using various cues as proxies for school safety. For instance, parents looked at clothing that students wore to evaluate the quality of the student body. In schools with dress codes, parents linked school uniforms to higher levels of safety. Parents also observed student–school staff interactions, deeming disrespectful exchanges as signals of school disorder and a lack of safety.

School Location

Researchers have long demonstrated connections between neighborhood crime, forms of disorder (e.g., structural blight), and school safety (Gulosino & Lubienski, 2011). In this study, parents in both charter and public schools seemed to confirm this prior scholarship as parents in every section of the city reported being concerned with how neighborhood conditions might influence student safety. A number of parents in both charter and public schools feared vacant buildings that lined their child’s walk to school, worrying that “drug addicts,” “homeless,” and others might emerge from vacant structures to attack their children. To avoid victimization along student commutes, several parents in charter and public schools drove their children to school, took public transportation with their child, or walked their child to school. For those commuting to schools of choice from outside of their neighborhoods, victimization during commutes was less of a further concern as these parents were more likely to pick-up and drop-off their children. Fear of gang and criminal activity spilling over from surrounding neighborhoods into schools was also a concern. Unlike many formal security measures described by parents, physical barriers insulating a school from the surrounding neighborhood seemed to raise perceived school safety. The use of walls and high gates around the school in two public schools, for example, seemed to create the perception that the schools were shielded from the surrounding neighborhood, thereby creating a greater sense of safety in school. In neighborhood schools without such physical barriers, concerns over shootings and gang activity infiltrating schools appeared to be higher.

Discussion

School safety is a major reason why parents report opting for charter schools in deindustrialized cities with high crime rates (Stewart & Wolf, 2012). By investigating what factors parents use to assess school safety, this study found that school building conditions, school disciplinary environment, school-based parental involvement, student selection, and school location were important components of safety perceptions. These findings largely comprise components of school climate, suggesting potential school climate–centered approaches for improving perceived school safety that diverge from many conventional strategies (e.g., metal detectors, security guards, and video surveillance) used over the past several decades (Hamlin, 2017b; Schueler, Capotosto, Bahena, McIntyre, & Gehlbach, 2013). As one of the main safety signals reported in this study, the presence of a parent on school grounds (e.g., parent volunteering, monitoring, and employment) seemed to enhance safety by generating familiarity and positive school climate. A focus on developing relationships, in particular, appeared to be significant for eliciting parent participation. Prior work also supports this link between closely connected school communities and improved school safety (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Kirk & Sampson, 2011; Schueler et al., 2013; Sheldon & Epstein, 2002). As an alternative, a strong parent presence in school seemed to improve perceived school safety, but it is worth noting that the parent participation described in some charter schools may be interrelated with self-selection effects (Bifulco & Ladd, 2006), whereby parents with the inclination or ability to participate in schools may be more predisposed to opt for charter schools that demand substantial parental support. Both school strategies and parent attributes may then be operative when considering the role of school-based parental involvement in raising perceived school safety (Hamlin, 2017a). By contrast, use of formal security, police, metal detectors, and video surveillance may be associated with lower perceived school safety and even discourage parent participation in school (Lacoe, 2015; Mowen, 2015).

In addition to school-based parental involvement, parents linked a highly structured learning environment (e.g., strict adherence to rules) to school safety (Cheng et al., 2017; Zimmer & Guarino, 2013). In schools of choice, strict behavioral strategies appeared to be aided by flexibility to determine the makeup of the student body with some charter school teachers reporting an easier process for counseling out and deterring disruptive students. Prior research on student selection mechanisms remains mixed on evidence that charter schools “crop” students with low achievement (Welner, 2013; Zimmer & Guarino, 2013), but in Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, Camden, and other economically depressed cities where safety is an overriding priority, these practices may be more closely related to student misconduct.

As a symbolic cue, parents linked the condition of the school building to school safety, reporting that they inspected the cleanliness and physical state of the school building when evaluating school safety. New or renovated structures with clean facilities appear to signal that the school is a haven from neighborhood conditions (Bosworth et al., 2011). In deindustrialized cities with high levels of crime and urban blight, the symbolic implications of well-maintained school buildings may then be highly influential in shaping school safety perceptions (Bell, 2009). At the same time, dilapidated school buildings with poorly maintained facilities could signal that the school is an extension of neighborhood disorder, lowering perceptions of school safety. Being closely tied to the atmosphere of the learning environment, such symbolic facets of safety appear to go beyond commonly reported measures of school violence and crime (Bosworth et al., 2011).

In considering perceived indicators of school safety presented in this study, several limitations must be highlighted. First, the findings are based on a subset of schools in a single city and trends in schools not represented in this study may be different. Second, although student compositions between charter and public schools in this study were largely undifferentiated by race and class, children of school choosers likely possess subtle advantages that could lead to overstating the influence of certain school strategies on perceptions of safety (Cowen, 2010; Hamlin, 2017b; Hoxby & Murarka, 2008). In spite of these limitations, this study presents findings that raise a number of questions for future research. First, fostering a parent presence in school (e.g., parent monitors in lieu of formal security) may be an effective safety strategy in neighborhoods where safety is a pressing concern (Jones et al., 2009; Ozer & Weinstein, 2004; Sheldon & Epstein, 2002). Would eliciting greater school-based parental support among nonchoosers in high-needs neighborhood public schools be feasible?

Second, renovating school buildings may help to enhance perceptions of social control, school climate, and perceived school safety. In financially constrained districts, could improved maintenance of facilities be helpful in sending symbolic messages about school safety? Third, schools may intend to foster a highly structured learning environment by communicating high expectations for behavior, balanced disciplinary procedures, and emphasizing orderly processes in school (Arum, 2003). Firm discipline, however, should not be equated with punitive disciplinary strategies. Meting out severe punishments may lead increased expulsions, dropout rates, and other adverse outcomes for highly disadvantaged students for whom education may be most vital (Blum, McNeely, & Rinehart, 2002). A question for future research may then be to determine what strategies might foster an orderly learning environment while also ensuring that highly disadvantaged students are not adversely affected in the process.

Finally, the vast majority of studies of schools in high-choice cities focus on academic achievement (Berends, 2015; Chin, Kane, Kozakowski, Schueler, & Staiger, 2019). By investigating school safety, this work draws attention to context-specific priorities for charter schools that have garnered less attention in the literature. Despite generally low-test scores in many of Detroit’s charter schools, charter school enrollments have rapidly increased. Safety-seeking seems to explain this growth. Future research may seek a broader account of school choice processes by examining local priorities for schools.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

Daniel Hamlin is now affiliated with Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Oklahoma, Tulsa, OK, USA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Daniel Hamlin is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma. His research examines how school governance influences non-tested measures of school performance with an emphasis on school climate, parental involvement, and student safety.

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