Some Chicago schools excel at curbing the academic and social-emotional fallout experienced by students who live near where homicides happen, a new University of Chicago study found, according to an article in Chalkbeat Chicago.
The report found that students living in proximity to killings tend to lose ground academically in the aftermath. Between 2011 and 2019, 1 in 5 Chicago Public Schools students lived within roughly two city blocks from the location of a homicide in any given year, with Black students more likely to have this experience. Six percent of students had the experience multiple times in a year.
But well-organized schools with positive climates and trusting relationships between students and adults consistently rein in this effect, the report found.
In most of the high schools studied, researchers saw a dip in test scores, GPAs, and attendance for students who lived close to a recent homicide. But on some campuses these metrics held steady on average, or in some cases even improved. That campus effect on how students dealt with exposure to violence in their communities was fairly small on average. But researchers believe the benefits are greater for the students most affected by closeness to homicides — eyewitnesses, for example — who likely would see academic outcomes plummet more without those school supports.
The campuses that curbed the effects of violence on students were scattered across the city, says David Johnson, one of the study’s authors. They tended to embrace a range of practices shown to improve school climate, from offering engaging instruction to forming teams of educators and staff to respond to behavioral issues more proactively. No single initiative or strategy accounted for that positive effect.
“In these schools, you have educators, administrators and staff members across the campus working together in a very intentional way,” Johnson said.
The study held up principals, who tend to play an outsize role in shaping a school’s culture, as a key factor. It also emphasized tiered systems for supporting students, in which educators and staff flag those needing the most help and steer intensive support to them.
The authors chose to focus on proximity to homicides because they are generally not underreported and don’t reflect uneven patterns of policing as other crime statistics tend to do.
The study also stressed that supporting students who have been exposed to violence is challenging work that takes a toll on educators. It’s important that they get help and resources they can use, such as those available through the Learning and Resource Hub at Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Center for Childhood Resilience, where Johnson now works. The consortium is also releasing a family playbook on school suspensions and discipline, which offers parents and caregivers guidance on ways they can help strengthen their school’s climate — part of a new initiative to engage community members to harness consortium research in promoting changes on local campuses.
Chalkbeat Chicago
