With the rise of the now-discredited "superpredator" language of the 1990s and the 1998 Columbine High School shooting, school safety and security has claimed significant public attention over the last several decades. Often, the state, district, and school-level conversations we hear most are about whether to arm teachers, hire more law enforcement officers in schools, and put funding towards hi-tech infrastructure or threat assessment, rather than how to protect and nurture the well-being and potential of every student. When asked what makes them feel safe in schools, students, families, and communities note that deep relationships with school staff and amongst students makes them feel safe. The narrative around safety, in many instances, has already been co-opted in ways that disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities. 

In this moment, there is a national spotlight on what safe and supportive schools look and feel like. It is the time to highlight work that embeds a more holistic conversation about safety into conversations about culturally-affirming social-emotional learning and overall student supports. Across the country, school districts, researchers, and policymakers are adopting social emotional learning (SEL) as a framework to define and measure the set of skills students need to be successful in school and in life. This work and these conversations run parallel to demands and campaigns around positive school climate that organizers have been advancing for many years. There is great opportunity to center SEL within organizer demands for culturally-affirming classrooms and schools before it is too late.