Harmful School Policies: Creating Necessary Change
By Alicia Oglesby and Rebecca Atkins | March 2024
School policies are the rules that govern how students, faculty, staff and families are expected to behave and interact with the school community. School policies are needed for safety, school culture and climate, and general wellness. Over time, policies should shift and change to meet the needs of the school community. As school counselors, we can play a critical role in assuring schools are creating and maintaining policies that benefit all the members of their community while reducing harm.
Policy audits are an opportunity to critically analyze and potentially dismantle rules, practices and processes that disproportionately harm groups of students. Critical analysis involves the questioning of what happens in your school. Think of the stories you may have heard from students and families, or the data you have collected from your student information system. Form questions about the policies at your school that stand out. That may be complaints from female students that the dress code policy is unfair or data that students with learning differences are not being proportionally represented in rigorous courses. Hold the policy you have identified in your mind as you read – we will outline some steps you can take to advocate for change within your school.
Perhaps you’re not sure where to start. Consider a policy or practice that you’ve heard complaints about from students, seen relevant data that is disproportionate, or even that you just don’t think works well.
Ask and Listen
Talk to students, families, colleagues and leaders about what they notice about the policy or practice. Listen (really listen!) to what they say about their experiences. Gather anecdotal data to share with decision makers. Discovering how policies harm students requires brave honesty about the impact of rules in the lives of students. Be open and aware that as part of the system, we are also a part of what might be causing harm. Stay willing to confront the idea in order to create change.
Collect Data
Schools function on data, so collect as much quantitative data as possible. Show disproportionality or relate the policy or practice to outcomes. Does the data show that girls are more likely to be dress coded? Does the school’s registration process mean that not all students have access to higher level courses? Paint the picture as clearly as possible.
Gather Your Team
Have you ever heard the phrase “That’s how it’s always been done”? School counselors are trained to reevaluate, but dismantling policies can be an arduous task. Enroll the assistance of other school faculty, staff, administrators, students and families to strengthen your efforts. Be sure the colleagues participating in the audit understand the source of the problem. Be careful to not “problematize” students or make students the root of issues in your school. For example, low enrollment of multilingual students in the gifted program does not mean those students are not gifted or not interested, but rather that the tools measuring giftedness are not capturing multilingual giftedness. Your team should recognize the distinction. The system impacting your students is usually the source.
Consider Your Influence
When working for change, we often make the mistake of focusing on people who are either very resistant or are not very interested in the change. Your key players in any work are those who are interested in the outcome and have a high level of influence on the outcome itself. Work to move decision makers into a higher level of interest if they are not there already. For example, your administration may be more interested in changing the registration process when they see that test scores and AP/Honors enrollment can be increased. Don’t expect decision makers to naturally agree with what you think is important – sometimes we have to explicitly make the connection for them.
Handing Resistance
When prioritizing efforts to create change within an institution that may be resistant, be mindful to start small. Understanding the reaction of your school community is vital to success. Buy-in can often make the process of change more collaborative. Resist the impulse to change everything all at once by coming to terms with gradual and consistent change. This differs from incremental change, which often moves at the pace of the least invested community members. Gradual and consistent change is a daily commitment by changemakers to see a better school community through everyday efforts. Take a step at a time, but don’t stop.
Reflect
Be open to the possibility that your ideas may not work or may inflict a different type of harm. Evaluation is key! Stay in contact with students and families to gauge the impact of change and be ready to make changes from your original plan. Continue to collect and interpret data through a social justice lens.
Schools are ever-growing and evolving places where school counselors can contribute to the overall wellness of the community. We must both work within the system and change the system to make schools a better place for all students.
Alicia Oglesby (a.k.oglesby1@gmail.com) is associate director of college counseling with Winchester Thurston, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Rebecca Atkins (rebatkins@gmail.com) is director of school counseling with Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. They are the authors of “Interrupting Racism, Equity and Social Justice in School Counseling.”
Policy audits are an opportunity to critically analyze and potentially dismantle rules, practices and processes that disproportionately harm groups of students. Critical analysis involves the questioning of what happens in your school. Think of the stories you may have heard from students and families, or the data you have collected from your student information system. Form questions about the policies at your school that stand out. That may be complaints from female students that the dress code policy is unfair or data that students with learning differences are not being proportionally represented in rigorous courses. Hold the policy you have identified in your mind as you read – we will outline some steps you can take to advocate for change within your school.
Action Steps
Choose a PolicyPerhaps you’re not sure where to start. Consider a policy or practice that you’ve heard complaints about from students, seen relevant data that is disproportionate, or even that you just don’t think works well.
Ask and Listen
Talk to students, families, colleagues and leaders about what they notice about the policy or practice. Listen (really listen!) to what they say about their experiences. Gather anecdotal data to share with decision makers. Discovering how policies harm students requires brave honesty about the impact of rules in the lives of students. Be open and aware that as part of the system, we are also a part of what might be causing harm. Stay willing to confront the idea in order to create change.
Collect Data
Schools function on data, so collect as much quantitative data as possible. Show disproportionality or relate the policy or practice to outcomes. Does the data show that girls are more likely to be dress coded? Does the school’s registration process mean that not all students have access to higher level courses? Paint the picture as clearly as possible.
Gather Your Team
Have you ever heard the phrase “That’s how it’s always been done”? School counselors are trained to reevaluate, but dismantling policies can be an arduous task. Enroll the assistance of other school faculty, staff, administrators, students and families to strengthen your efforts. Be sure the colleagues participating in the audit understand the source of the problem. Be careful to not “problematize” students or make students the root of issues in your school. For example, low enrollment of multilingual students in the gifted program does not mean those students are not gifted or not interested, but rather that the tools measuring giftedness are not capturing multilingual giftedness. Your team should recognize the distinction. The system impacting your students is usually the source.
Consider Your Influence
When working for change, we often make the mistake of focusing on people who are either very resistant or are not very interested in the change. Your key players in any work are those who are interested in the outcome and have a high level of influence on the outcome itself. Work to move decision makers into a higher level of interest if they are not there already. For example, your administration may be more interested in changing the registration process when they see that test scores and AP/Honors enrollment can be increased. Don’t expect decision makers to naturally agree with what you think is important – sometimes we have to explicitly make the connection for them.
Handing Resistance
When prioritizing efforts to create change within an institution that may be resistant, be mindful to start small. Understanding the reaction of your school community is vital to success. Buy-in can often make the process of change more collaborative. Resist the impulse to change everything all at once by coming to terms with gradual and consistent change. This differs from incremental change, which often moves at the pace of the least invested community members. Gradual and consistent change is a daily commitment by changemakers to see a better school community through everyday efforts. Take a step at a time, but don’t stop.
Reflect
Be open to the possibility that your ideas may not work or may inflict a different type of harm. Evaluation is key! Stay in contact with students and families to gauge the impact of change and be ready to make changes from your original plan. Continue to collect and interpret data through a social justice lens.
Schools are ever-growing and evolving places where school counselors can contribute to the overall wellness of the community. We must both work within the system and change the system to make schools a better place for all students.
Alicia Oglesby (a.k.oglesby1@gmail.com) is associate director of college counseling with Winchester Thurston, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Rebecca Atkins (rebatkins@gmail.com) is director of school counseling with Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. They are the authors of “Interrupting Racism, Equity and Social Justice in School Counseling.”