An investigation into the issues encountered while providing the safety in secondary education institutions

Schools, where almost all of the learning and teaching activities take place, face many challenges nowadays. The aim of this study was to investigate and identify the sub-dimensions of the school safety problems encountered in secondary schools. For this purpose, holistic case study design was selected among qualitative methods. The sample of the study involved a total of 16 participants working as principals (n=6), counselors (n=5), and teachers (n=5) in five different secondary schools in Antalya, Turkey from four different school types (i.e., science, social sciences, anatolian and anatolian technical and vocational high school). The participants were selected through maximum variation sampling among purposive sampling methods, and the study was conducted in 2015-2016 academic year. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews by means of an interview form created based on the current literature by the researcher. The acquired data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis through a qualitative data analysis software. The findings were organized around four main themes: (1) the views about the concept of school safety, (2) the problems encountered in the last six months, (3) the issues encountered in ensuring the school safety, and (4) the safety measures taken to ensure school safety and recommended safety measures. The findings were demonstrated descriptively by means of frequency and percentage tables and with extracts related to the views of the participants. The study revealed that school safety was affected negatively by bullying, problematic mobile phone usage, addictive substance usage (smoking, drugs, alcohol), physical arrangements at school, and inadequate social facilities. Participants stated the measures to ensure the school safety that camera, hall monitor, unarmed private security guard, disaster drill, announcing school rules in different ways and so on. As a conclusion, safe schools have positive impact on academic achievement of students. Investigating and identifying the school safety problems encountered in the secondary schools can help to design a safe school plan. Furthermore, recommendations for policy makers was made as giving in-service training about school safety to all stakeholders, giving courses for teacher candidates based on safe schools in the faculty of education, and developing comprehensive crisis management plan. Keywords: School Safety, Safe School, Safety Problems in Schools