You can tell a lot about what each school values the most by looking at what they write about. So how do you know if your school values your achievements more than your health and safety?
Do you think that your school cares about you? Well, one way to check may be to take a look at the health and safety regulations at the school. For reference, here are 3 handbooks from different international schools in Asia. Even though they are all international schools and all in Asia, there are still big differences in not only the amount of information they write about student health, but what they thought was the “main point” (what parts they thought were important enough to include).
Standards of Safety:
One thing that is noticed when you open up the KAS handbook is that it places a rather harsh/heavy spotlight on academics and academic honesty that student health and safety sometimes takes a backseat.
Immediately from the table of contents page, academics is seen to be the main topic in multiple sections of the handbook, (sections 3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 17) while safety only gets 1 (section 9). As you flip to section 9, you then notice that the handbook actually only has 1 page documenting the procedures that the school takes in case of an emergency.
Only things like fires, earthquakes, and school cancellations are featured.
Even then, the course of action to be taken for each incident only includes a brief description. For example, the instructions of what to do in case of a emergency reads, “Any Emergency / Safety concerns should be directed immediately to the Superintendent’s office for review and follow up.” If there is an urgent matter that needs to be taken care of, it seems to be a waste of precious time to have to first review and then follow up on the situation before taking action.
Physical Health:
Section 9.2 is the only direct reference to student health and safety, which is disappointing when compared to the fact that the handbook has 21 overall sections. The section basically just says that the school would inform parents in case there are outbreaks of infectious diseases and that parents should not allow their kids to go to school if they so happen to be contagious (with no specified diseases).
NOWHERE in that section does it sound like the school cares for the students as individuals, but instead, they seem to care for the student population as a whole and only as a whole.
NOWHERE in that section does it talk about the health of individual students and where they can seek help from the school.
NOWHERE in that section does it talk about how students can seek guidance or help for physical pain, let alone emotional distress.
In a section about student health and safety, there is nothing on how a student should seek help for their own health and safety.
Mental Health:
However, since KAS organizes their handbook by section, it’s easy to see in the table of contents that KAS does include some bits and pieces of extra information for how students can take care of their health whether it be physically, like what to do when you contract a disease (section 9.2), or mentally.
Oh look, when you flip to section 16, there’s a nice surprise!
Section 16.1 “Guidance and Counseling”.
Maybe they’ll finally talk about how students can take care of their mental health… But wait! Would you look at that. It’s counseling…for academic needs. Even the first description of what KAS counselors do is academically centered. “Counselors are vital members of the education team. They help all students in the areas of academic achievement…”
Not centered around the mental health of the students.
Clearly KAS’s main priority is not safety. So, what exactly is their main priority then?
Academics:
Well, by taking a look at the titles of KAS’ academic sections, you get the clear feeling that their main focus isn’t just academics and getting the perfect grades/credits needed for graduation, but instead, their main focus seems to be making sure the student is creating work that is representative of them. In Section 3: Expected Student Learning Outcome, the whole emphasis on academics in the KAS handbook is made clear. There is a reason the school gives so much information about graduation requirements and what IB classes you need to take; it is preparing you for the rest of your life.
The focus on academics at KAS is not to force students to get perfect grades, but to develop them into being independent thinkers. Being an independent thinker includes all the things in Section 3, such as being critical thinkers, active learners, and effective communicators. This is why sections discussing academics like Section 16: Academic Dishonesty (a section that’s somewhat ironically longer than that of student safety) is included in the KAS handbook.
Since KAS wants students to take charge of their own learning and apply those skills beyond high school, it stresses the importance of academics throughout the handbook. The section on student safety and health may be brief and concise (and wayyyyyy shorter than the pages of academic guidelines) because this handbook’s main focus is to emphasize the importance of academics and academic honesty in its students’ futures.
Standards of Safety:
Similar to KAS, in the SCIS ECE Handbook, the table of contents lays out the information of the handbook in sections, making it easy for the readers to quickly skim through the handbook and find what they’re looking for. One distinct difference between the handbook of SCIS and KAS from the start is that there are significantly less sections for the SCIS handbook (7) compared the KAS (21). They’ve condensed everything they needed to say into 7 sections of importance, one of which includes student safety.
This handbook is by far the most detailed out of the 3 in terms of student health.
Physical Health:
The school discusses what the school is going to do for both the student and the parent in case their student gets sick or has an illness. There is a detailed course of action and guidelines for what the parents/kids should do which not only shows the school’s concern for the individual students, but for the student population.
The school lists specific illnesses that prohibits specific students to come to school in order to ensure the health of both the individual student and protection of the student body. For example, “Fever: A child with a fever of over 99 F/37.2 C or more will be sent home. The child may return when fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medicines.” The way this handbook deals with health by giving the course of action they are going to take makes them appear as to care more about their students as opposed to KAS.
The level of detail and research provided indicates to the readers that the school has actually thought about what will be best for the student’s recovery.
Mental Health:
There is also a plan for what the school plans to do when kids deal with non-physical issues, such as separation anxiety. Although not a prominent issue, especially with kids in high school, SCIS makes it a point to include that younger kids dealing with separation anxiety will be reassured of their parents’ return and that it is the job of the teacher to ease separation anxiety.
KAS has very little information about what to do in case a student’s physical health deteriorates, let alone have information about what to do when students are dealing with mental or psychological health issues, such as separation anxiety for younger kids.
SCIS puts a lot of focus and care into ensuring that the students of their school are not only physically fit, but also mentally fit to be in school and this is shown through the attention to detail in their handbook.
Academics:
At SCIS, their dedication to student health can even be seen in their academics section of the handbook. In multiple places, the emphasis is put on making sure the students are not burdened by academics, but instead, developing healthy habits.
This is similar to KAS’ idea of setting students up to become contributing citizens of society. Both schools aim, through academics, to shape inquiring, knowledgeable and caring students who positively contribute to their communities.
Standards of Safety:
The AISHK handbook requires people to take a closer look at each part of the book because even though there is a table of contents, the parts are not divided into numbered sections, making it hard to find the parts about student safety and academics. The interesting about the safety section of this handbook is that the content is very different.
KAS and SCIS took the idea of student health and safety as to only attain to keeping students safe from illnesses and what to do in case there is a medical emergency. However, AISHK only provides a generalized plan of what the school will do in the case of an emergency, “Your child will be taken to the nearest public hospital, unless you have instructed us otherwise.”
There is no mention of what kind of emergency or what kind of illnesses will be serious enough to warrant the school to bring the student there.
Instead, they have 2 options; the school nurse or the hospital.
Food Safety:
That’s not even the most interesting part. AISHK puts the spotlight on food safety when talking about student health, something neither KAS or SCIS have even touched on. Their section on food allergies and their food catering’s daily hygiene/sanitization is the most detailed out of the 3 handbooks.
Things that have not been mentioned in the other 2 handbooks, such as “Identification of high-risk foods and replacement with other nutritious foods” and “Awareness of craft materials that can cause risk e.g. egg cartons, milk containers, peanut butter jars” are brought up for the first time and draws attention especially to helping kids with allergies stay away from their triggers.
Formatting of Safety Section:
Another unique addition to their safety section is that when they finally do talk about diseases, it is set up in a simple chart that simply states the name of the disease and if/how long the student needs to stay at home. The chart is easily understandable and keeps information concise, unlike KAS and SCIS, who both wrote about diseases in paragraph format, making it harder to parents to find information quickly.
Although the handbook does set rules in place for the teachers to impose less than a certain amount of homework in order to avoid stressing the students, it seems as if the main focus of this school is letting kids explore their passions.
Sports and Activities:
In their handbook, unlike KAS and SCIS, AISHK has a lot more information about sports and extracurricular activities for the students, encouraging them to become involved in what interests them. There is not such an emphasis on building character through academic learning, but instead, they focus on building character through the sportsmanship and sense of team that comes along with sports.
“We expect every person representing AISHK to be excellent ambassadors for our school.”
AISHK wants the students to be good people that set a good reputation for the morals that the school teaches, whether it be building character through academics or building character through sports.
Takeaway From All Handbooks
Perhaps what each school values the most, whether it be academics, art, or athletics, affects how much the school writes about safety in their annual handbook.
Perhaps the school expects you to know how to take good care of yourself that rules for safety should be common sense.
Perhaps these schools just want you to focus on being a independent thinker instead of being constantly worried over if you’re following safety guidelines.
However boring you may think student handbooks are to read, they are still able to provide a lot of information that not only ensures that students are becoming good citizens, but also that they are remaining safe while doing so. Schools want you to be the best person you can be, but the way they aim to achieve that and the lengths they will go to bring out the best version of you, that is what differs so greatly between schools.
And that is why different handbooks exist; to fit what each school expects from their students.
