School Safety and Disaster Management in Balicuatro Public Elementary Schools, Northern Samar

School safety and disaster management jointly protect learners and sustain education in hazard-prone communities. Objective: This study assessed school safety and disaster management in public elementary schools in the Balicuatro Area of Northern Samar, compared school-head and teacher perceptions, examined their relationship, and developed a contextualized enhancement plan. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive-correlational design involved 332 respondents: 79 school heads through complete enumeration and 253 teachers randomly selected from 731. An expert-reviewed, researcher-developed questionnaire measured seven school-safety dimensions and five disaster-management domains (Cronbach's alpha = .901). Means, ranks, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Kendall's tau-b were applied at alpha = .05. Results: Overall school safety was "Much Safe" (M = 3.49); water safety ranked highest (M = 3.81), while non-structural safety (M = 3.22), school security (M = 3.27), and structural safety (M = 3.29) ranked lowest. Disaster management was "High" (M = 3.66), with response (M = 3.51) and recovery (M = 3.52) as the weakest domains. School heads and teachers differed significantly in non-structural safety, food and sanitation, and school grounds, but not in disaster-management domains. School safety was strongly associated with disaster management (tau-b = .757, p < .001), and all domain-level relationships were significant. Conclusion: Schools showed generally favorable practices, but non-structural safety, school security, response, and recovery require priority action. The proposed plan emphasizes evidence-based audits, corrective works, functional exercises, continuity planning, coordinated responsibilities, and performance monitoring.

school safety; disaster risk reduction; disaster management; public elementary schools

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