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Almost every year the nation was shocked by the fire incident at school and hostel. The Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia (2020) recorded 216 fires that have occurred at the private Islamic religious schools from 2015 until 2019, where several fires have killed many students, such as accidents in 1985, 1998, 2013, 2014 and 2017. As a result, the public began questioning the level of awareness among the school administrators. Addressing these issues, a survey has been conducted on the private Islamic religious schools that had experienced fire incidents in order to identify the awareness level among the administrators and students and to investigate whether aspects of compliance with fire safety procedures are enhanced. Four groups of respondents were selected, in which the Department of Fire and Rescue acts as a focus group. The other three groups are the victims who have faced the fire itself in their respective schools. The findings highlighted that the awareness level among victims towards the fire prevention practices is very low. Evidence has revealed there is no periodic supervision towards fire safety equipment, and only 35% comply with the standard procedure. Experts suggest sustainable school building should introduce to meet the criteria in performance-based fire management solutions. This reflects the fact that building continuity and fire safety can be complementary, not contradictory, if the two disciplines engage in meaningful dialogue at the beginning of the design process.

This book provides a deeper understanding of what it means to promote social justice and equity work in schools and communities around the world. Throughout this book, narratives describe how authors continue to reshape the agenda for educational reform. They remind us of the significance meaningful relationships play in promoting and sustaining reform efforts that address the injustices vulnerable populations face in school communities. Their voices represent the need for engaging with obstacles and barriers and a resistant world through a web of relationships, an intersubjective reality (see Ayers, 1996). As authors engaged in thinking about addressing injustices, they describe how their thoughts transformed into actions moving beyond, breaking through institutional structures, attempting to rebuild and make sense of their own situations (see Dewey, 1938).

In 2017, 22% of the Canadian population are foreign-born immigrants and one in five is a visible racial minority. Canadian schools and classrooms mirror the diversity of the society and are populated with more and more immigrant and refugee students from diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds each year. Uprooted from their home countries and familiar environments, immigrant and refugee students experience barriers and challenges in new living and educational environments. The increasing number of immigrant and refugee students and their unique educational needs and challenges have called building welcoming and inclusive schools a priority in Canadian education system. This chapter addresses the urgent need for high-impact policies, practices and praxis to build welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students through cross-sector community engagement. Based on several empirical studies, critical and extensive literature review and authors’ professional reflections, this chapter introduces a theoretical framework of building welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students and introduces the promising strategies of engaging community stakeholders, including educators, students, parents, governments and community organizations and agencies.

Literature reveals that charter schools were established to improve learning, support low-achieving students, offer innovation and school choice, and create greater competition within the public school system to stimulate continued educational improvement. However, charter schools have political, organizational, and financial challenges that are unique to their settings. Unlike traditional schools that depend on district central offices, charter schools must identify their own sources to sustain organizational needs (Smith, Wohlstetter, & Hentschke, 2008a, 2008b). Conzemius and O’Neill (2001) argue building a community of collaboration among faculty is a key component of charter school success. Studies reveal that the development of school–family–community partnerships is a key component of education reform and school improvement (Bryan, 2005; Sanders, 2003) and building partnerships is necessary for charter schools to acquire much-needed resources. The intent of this chapter is to provide urban charter school and autonomous leaders with the knowledge, skills, and tools to build collaboration among school faculty, engage a variety of community stakeholders, and build and sustain strong community partnerships in ways that lead to school improvement.

Schools play an important role in Japan by becoming evacuation centers after disasters. Depending on the nature of disaster, the school can be occupied for several days to several months. Therefore, schools play a crucial role in disaster risk reduction and can contribute to very strong bonding with the local communities. This chapter describes the experiences of six cities with the roles of schools during disasters. Kamaishi, Kesennuma, and Natori, three cities affected by the tsunami, have shown the important role that schools played in the time of disaster. Although some schools were destroyed in these three cities, people spent significant time in other schools as evacuees. Pre-disaster preparedness of schools and communities helped a lot in this regard. Taking the experiences from the East Japan disaster, Saijo, Owase, and Oobu cities in West Japan demonstrated their preparedness for future disaster. The chapter also shows that school-centered disaster preparedness before the disaster leads to an effective role during the disaster and also facilitates post-disaster recovery with schools as the center.

Trust has been identified as key to students’ academic improvement. The purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions that build trust in teachers, both towards their colleagues and school leaders, and to explore the emotions triggered among these participants. This study uses the critical incident technique to conduct interviews with 34 teachers from the Valparaíso Region (Chile). Results show that incidents are easily remembered when a subordinate relationship is involved. Many critical incidents are related to situations in which teachers are particularly vulnerable. Hence, teachers value the treatment received and support provided. The arrival of new teachers to a school is crucial when building bonds of trust. Benevolence is the facet that stands out the most in incidents reported by teachers and school leaders, while satisfaction is the most recurrent emotion. In the case of school leaders, benevolence is closely followed by competence. In the case of teachers, benevolence is followed by honesty, openness and competence. In this case, the associated emotion is affection.

In this chapter, an overview is presented, related to complexities around transition to junior secondary schools for students who have experienced literacy difficulties in their primary school years. The personal and social consequences of ongoing literacy difficulties for those students is examined and the barriers to participation and engagement are identified. Then, current approaches to literacy teaching and learning in adolescence are considered, including specific references to personalised learning, strengths-based approaches differentiation and use of technology.

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of the English, Northern Irish, Arab Israeli, Trinidad and Tobago and the US cases. The focus is what we have learned from the research about: the relationships within Education Governance Systems to navigate turbulence; building capacity for empowering senior-level leaders to deliver on their manifestos and outstanding track records for school improvement; reducing the achievement gap between dominant groups and marginalised groups in International Governance Systems. The chapter identifies that all cases require participatory multi-stakeholder action to develop and support collaborative networked learning communities in practice. Such communities of and for practice need to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER). Policy and Education Governance Systems have the potential to synthesise the best of what has been said and done in the past, with innovative ways of working by empowering networks of knowledge building and advocacy. These networks co-create opportunities for action learners to work together to describe intersectionalities of discrimination and begin to remove fear of discrimination and marginalisation from Education Governance Systems. From this position, senior-level leaders can work with their leaders, teachers, parents and students to optimise how learning about the self, and learning how to learn improves community education for all students and EYSIER.