Three-quarters of New Westminster Secondary School students feel safe at school — but glass-walled classrooms, washrooms being used inappropriately, and some dangerous school incidents are among the down sides for those who don’t.
Those were among the findings of an NWSS student survey presented to the school board’s education committee on Feb. 7. The survey, conducted by the school’s Student Voice group, gathered 615 responses from students in grades 9 through 12.
Of those, 463 said Yes to the question: Do you feel safe at school?
For the quarter who said they didn’t, student reps told the board there were several factors at play.
“Many students have expressed that the glass walls make them feel unsafe,” Shantei Leal told trustees. “It makes them feel like they have no privacy and like they’re being watched. There were also many responses about the bathrooms and how they’re not being used for the right purposes.”
Leal noted many students are worried about washroom safety, citing a recent fire in a boys’ washroom and the worry that such an incident might happen again.
A related question, Do you feel the need for added security at our school?, saw 389 students say No and another 226 say Yes.
Among the suggestions from students to help them feel safer were adding blinds to every classroom for privacy and safety reasons, controlling the loitering in student washrooms, bringing back police officers or another form of security, and adding security cameras.
The New Westminster school board voted to end the police liaison program in April 2021, citing concerns about the impact of police presence on BIPOC students.
Surveillance cameras are an ongoing project for the school district, which agreed to add cameras at key locations such as hallways and entranceways after a series of incidents at the school in the fall.
Principal Murray McLeod confirmed the school has presented a plan for video surveillance to the parent advisory council, and it’s hoping for the extra surveillance cameras to be added after March break.
Other Student Voice survey findings:
Multi-stall universal washroom at NWSS
Two gendered washrooms on the main floor at NWSS were converted to non-gendered, universal washrooms this year. The survey asked students to rate the statement: I like the multi-stall universal washroom.
The largest chunk of students, 40 per cent (246 responses) were neutral. Another 143 agreed (66 somewhat agreed, 77 strongly agreed), while 226 disagreed (136 strongly disagreed, 90 somewhat disagreed).
Two-thirds of students (403 out of 615) said they don’t use the multi-stall universal washroom.
Mental health and NWSS students
Students were also asked: How is school affecting your mental health so far this year?
The largest chunk of students responded Neutral (224, or 36 per cent) or Somewhat Negatively (206, or 33 per cent). Another 105 said Extremely Negatively, while small numbers of respondents were on the other end of the scale: Extremely Positively (21) or Somewhat Positively (59).
“We didn’t necessarily expect the most positive results to come out of this question,” student Porya Dashtipour told trustees, noting the results were better than expected.
He also noted the number of students responding negatively has gone down since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, so he said the results could be seen as “a step forward.”
📢 SOUND OFF: Is there an NWSS student in your house? Are you a student? What are your feelings about school safety? Send us a letter.
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