School safety efforts can be divided into two eras. There is B.C. - Before Columbine - and afterward.
The student massacre in Littleton, Colo., has forever changed how schools approach school safety.
Kevin Kwoka studies a chart capsulizing a stakeholder discussion.
"Columbine definitely brought the issue of school safety to the top of the list," says Francine Rice-Laabs, who heads CTA's School Safety/ School Management Committee (SSSMC).
But it's not always easy to get the safety message across, notes Rice-Laabs, who serves as president of the NEA Jurupa chapter of CTA. "Recently some of the Columbine kids were making the public speaking rounds. Halfway into it, the room often emptied out. No one wanted to hear it. I think people basically feel it's never going to happen in their school. That may be true to an extent, but you have to act like it could happen and be prepared."
"Columbine sent a tremendous message to educators across America in terms of revisiting school safety plans," comments Rich Lieberman, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the National Organization of Victim Assistance (NOVA) who went to the Columbine site after the shootings to help the faculty cope with the aftermath. A school psychologist assigned to the Suicide Prevention Unit of the Los Angeles Unified School District, he says, "Schools should be proactive instead of just collaborating with police in times of crisis."
Teacher Betty Owens moderates conference.
Students playing pranks after Columbine more than doubled the number of bomb threats made to California schools in 1998-99 (the most recent statistics available from the California Department of Education). Violent crime rose 7 percent that year, primarily due to an increase in reports of battery, or the use of force or violence on another person. Four students out of every 1,000 were victims of violent crime.
The Safe Schools Task Force assembled by the state's attorney general and state superintendent of public instruction reports that the chance of a homicide in a California school is less than one in a million. "California children today are safer in school, on average, than they are in a car, on the street, or, sadly, even at home. Our schools are among the safest places for our children. Nevertheless, there is cause for concern. Three of the deaths which took place nationwide last year (1998-99) were in California schools: a school parking lot shooting; a student found beaten to death in a school shed; and a head injury death over the use of a basketball court at a middle school."
Christina Moore (center) and classmates (from left) Alec Arlen, Katie Kennedy, Melanie Henderson, and Richard Rendon discuss what they think would help create a violence-free learning environment at their school in Roseville.
The 23 members of the Safe Schools Task Force, representing education, law enforcement, community groups and youth, concluded that any crime on a school campus is one too many.
Preparing for the worst
From police guards, lockdowns and crackdowns to counseling and violence prevention programs, schools throughout the state are striving to improve overall safety, but some are making more progress than others.
This is the second year that Senate Bill 187 has been in effect. Since the bill requires that all schools have a safety plan in place and that teachers be included in the planning process at each site, CTA is encouraging local chapters to bargain school safety plans into contracts, along with consequences such as suspension or expulsion for certain types of student behavior.
"When SB 187 hit, there was a mad scramble for schools to get together a plan quickly," notes Vivian Linfor, an education programs consultant for the Safe Schools and Violence Prevention Office at the California Department of Education. Now, she adds, many schools are fine-tuning their plans and using state funding for different priorities.
Last year, when $100 million was distributed to California schools for safety purposes, "everyone got a good chunk of money to design a plan," she says. "Lots of schools used funds for one-time purchases," such as fences, lighting, walkie-talkies and telephones. "This year schools will receive $72 million for school safety, and we expect that more money will be spent for personnel, such as counselors and other support people that kids can go to for help, if needed."
Currently, California schools average only one counselor for more than 1,000 students, ranking last among all states.
Although it mandates that schools have a safety plan, SB 187 has no teeth. "Even though the law says you have to have a school safety plan, I'm concerned that they are not being done at all," worries Rice-Laabs. "Also, if they sit on a shelf and are never looked at, they're not practical." Suva Intermediate School in Montebello is one case in point. The good news is that the school has an excellent safety plan; the bad news is that it is not being implemented.
"I think it's a very good plan," says lead safety plan writer Robin Gray-Ballard, who teaches health education to seventh and eighth-graders. "We had quite a bit of training from the L.A. County Office of Education. Groups of teachers and administrators visited from schools where there had been shootings or other violent or dangerous situations. They told us some preventative things to do, as well as things their schools had implemented after these incidents. It was very informative."
"We feel very good about the plan," says Gray-Ballard, a member of the Montebello Teachers Association. "We have a great safety committee, a great emergency team for drills, and a great crisis plan. The problem is getting them implemented. Some things just don't get done."
For example, the plan calls for having only one point of entry and exit during the day, with security personnel patrolling the campus. But no provisions have been made to close off some of the access points or hire the needed security personnel.
"There are lots of ways for people to come on to the campus easily," she says. "Also, there are lots of places where we don't have students supervised, because there isn't security. We have things on campus that need to be fixed," like a broken fence that allows people to enter the campus from a neighboring park where gang-related shootings have occurred.
"I have a concern that something bad will happen, and that's how things will get implemented," says Gray-Ballard. "I don't want us to find out the hard way that the safety plan needs to be implemented."
Fannie Jones-Hundley, a teacher at Lynwood Middle School who serves on CTA's school safety committee, worries that her school does not yet have a safety plan.
"We're supposed to be working on a school safety plan, but it's not going forward like it should because we keep getting new principals every year," says Jones-Hundley, a member of the Lynwood Teachers Association.
"Last year there were complaints about guns on campus, but they are trying to keep all that hush-hush. I'm very nervous that we don't have a plan in place. A lot of teachers are nervous. If everyone had a copy of a plan, we would know what to do and it would be much better for everyone. Without a plan, we're all on our own."
Although she feels safe most of the time, Jones-Hundley is concerned about classrooms in trailers that are really isolated.
"We used to have a conflict resolution counselor, but the program was stopped even though it was very beneficial, and we didn't have as many fights."
She hopes the new principal will improve things and see the value in putting a school safety plan in place.
According to a report to the governor released in April by the School Violence Prevention Task Force, many middle and high schools, and some school districts, do not yet have a crisis management plan, even though funds have been made available. Of the schools that have developed crisis prevention protocols, the report says few have conducted drills or simulations and many have not incorporated crisis management into the plans they have developed. "State law does not require crisis response to be a component of the comprehensive school safety plan."
The governor's report says K-12 public schools in California are generally not prepared to deal with the challenge of a domestic terrorist act or any other man-made or natural crisis because:
- Most have not conducted crisis simulations and mock drills in partnership with law enforcement.
- Most police departments have not developed a coordinated crisis response or crisis management plan with individual schools.
- Most school and municipal police do not have ready access to the essential school site layouts, maps and design plans.
- Most schools do not have phones in every classroom.
- Most schools lack a standardized warning signal.
- Part-time security personnel and schoolyard supervisors are not required to receive any formal training in school security.
- Lack of a crisis response plan proved disastrous in Columbine.
Police officers received phone calls from groups of trapped students and faculty, but didn't have the school blueprints or floor plans necessary to find them. The principal had to sketch out, as best he could, the floor plan of the school including the rooms where people were trapped.
Since there was no way to disarm the school alarms from the outside, blaring sirens made it difficult for people with walkie-talkies and telephones to be clearly heard.
In addition, officers from various municipalities were hampered in their rescue efforts because their walkie-talkies were on different frequencies.
Officials scrambled to shut off water sprinklers as electrical wires sparked.
To prevent such a scenario in California, the state's attorney general has given all schools a box to be filled with aerial photos, keys, utility shut-off instructions and other vital information. In addition, the Department of Education now offers training in how to develop a school safety plan.
How can you call 911 without a phone?
Few people work in an environment without a link to the outside world - unless they happen to work in the classroom. The School Violence Prevention Task Force found: "In the event of a school crisis, schools in many districts across the state do not have a dedicated communication system with links to law enforcement. Most do not have telephones in every classroom."
Teachers find it frustrating to be told it is imperative that they prepare a school safety plan, but remain incommunicado without a phone.
"We're still trying to get phones in every classroom," relates Ellen Gutierrez, a CTA school safety committee member who teaches kindergarten at Linwood Elementary School in Visalia. "When you have a telephone line with 30 to 40 classrooms, but only two lines that go out to the real world, what are the chances that those two lines are going to be busy? Phones cost big money, and legislation to require them always dies in the Legislature. But CTA keeps throwing the ball back with new legislation."
"We're working on trying to increase the numbers of phones at different school sites," says Jerry Lillie, president of the Stockton Teachers Association. A teacher at Stagg High School, Lillie has taught students who survived the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in the 1980s and would very much like to see Stockton have phones in every classroom. "There are holes in terms of where people can get access to a phone."
Larry Allen, vice chair of CTA's school safety committee and a member of the Middletown Teachers Association (Lake County), was pleased to see his district finally install phones in every classroom. "Before Columbine, 50 percent of our classrooms didn't have phones. Now they all do. It cost a lot, but it was worth the investment."
Schools have practiced lockdown drills in his district, although students were not told what the drill was for. "Any kids who were outside were brought in, and the kids inside stayed inside," says Allen. "We locked the door and laid low, away from the windows, until the all-clear sign went off. It was a reverse fire drill."
For teachers, the drill brought home the fact that their classroom doors could not be locked from the inside. In an actual crisis, teachers would have to reach outside the door to lock it. For this reason, CTA's safety committee favors doors having inside locks as well as peepholes for teachers to see who is outside.
Teachers have also expressed concern that they are not always informed when a student with a history of violence enrolls in their class. "One school in Los Angeles had a child with an ankle monitor, and the teacher didn't know why," says Gutierrez. "I think if that child is put into a classroom with other students, the teacher should know why. The whole class doesn't need to know the reason, but teachers should know what they are up against."
A juvenile crime notification bill, Senate Bill 334, went into effect last January, requiring that courts notify a school superintendent when students have committed felonies or misdemeanors.
"I think the full impact of this has not reached teachers yet," observes Rice-Laabs. "It differs from district to district as to how teachers are notified. It's going to take some time before people understand the way it needs to be done. Superintendents are concerned about confidentiality."
When high school teachers in her district were not being informed about potentially dangerous students, she sent out a memo letting them know they needed to be notified. "I got a positive reaction," she says. "This is important, because it affects how teachers interact with that child in the classroom. I think it can help teachers serve students better if they have some background information - as well as protect themselves. Maybe they will need to develop a special plan for that child."
Some in the education field believe that prescription drugs taken for behavioral problems and learning disabilities result in violence committed by children. The Colorado Board of Education passed a resolution to discourage teachers from recommending prescription drugs like Ritalin and Luvox for students. One of the teen Columbine killers, Eric Harris, had been taking Luvox, an antidepressant, although there is no evidence the drug had anything to do with the shootings. While there have been cases of crimes committed by young people taking psychotropic drugs, mental health experts point out that these children were having difficulties to begin with and that generally the drugs are more beneficial than harmful.
When trying to predict whether a child is potentially dangerous, some school districts rely on the controversial practice known as "profiling." Nineteen months after the Columbine shootings, which killed 12 students and one teacher and wounded 23, school districts across the nation are using "early warning systems" to identify students who may commit violent acts. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Some programs are modeled on law enforcement methods used to track dangerous criminals and analyze workplace dangers. Others are in-depth psychological surveys developed by school districts."
In Los Angeles County, 20 districts have adopted a threat assessment system similar to one developed by the police department, according to the Times. Other schools in the area are testing a computer program created by Gavin de Becker, who has developed programs used by the CIA and U.S. Marshals Service.
The FBI recently released a study that listed dozens of behavioral problems that could be indicators of potential violence, including a macabre sense of humor, a fascination with violence-filled entertainment or the admiration of "inappropriate role models" including Hitler and Satan. Other warning signs include depression, a failed romance, poor coping skills, low self-esteem and anger-management problems.
Usually such a profiling program is used after a student commits a violent act or makes threats. The student may then be asked such questions as, "Have you ever abused an animal? Do you have access to a gun at home? Have you been depressed?" to determine whether he or she may go off the deep end.
Those in favor of such programs say it is a way of preventing future tragedies such as Columbine. Critics question the accuracy of student profiles and warn of the risk of stigmatizing children going through a difficult time.
"If such a profile is placed in a student's file at school and follows them through their whole academic career, I think it's inappropriate," says Rice-Laabs. "Everyone will be looking for the child to flip out and do something bizarre when the child may just be going through a moment in time with a problem that's not long-lasting."
"America is always looking for a quick fix," says Lieberman. "Educators are well aware of at-risk kids and know who they are because they work with them every day. The issue isn't profiling. The real issue is coming up with funding, personnel and resources for mental health programs. We need programs designed to empower kids with skills in coping, making decisions, managing anger and resolving conflicts so they don't end up turning to violence."
Suppress, divert or both?
Most schools use both the suppression approach, which includes deterrents like security guards, dress codes and metal detectors, and the diversion approach, which includes nurturing students' coping skills and averting problems altogether by implementing programs that provide mentors for at-risk students, conflict mediation, peer counseling, school psychologists, counselors and support groups.
What works at one school site may differ from what works at another school site. However, most schools share a common goal: fostering campus safety without creating the environment of a penitentiary. It can be a delicate balancing act.
Desyre Rodriguez goes to a safe school, but she and her classmates will implement action plans anyhow - just to keep it that way.
"We can't search all students, so we have a policy of randomly scanning students for potential weapons with metal detectors," says Floyd Worsham, dean at Gompers Middle School in Los Angeles and a member of CTA's safety committee. "We have roving security and police on campus. We're also working to establish self-pride, put intervention programs in place and teach children how to resolve conflicts through means other than violent acts."
To decrease violence, teachers need to be strict, but they also need to help students develop a value system that allows them to function within a school setting, says Worsham.
He advocates sending students with severe emotional and behavioral problems to alternative schools. "We live in a society that has agreed to live by certain rules, but we have a growing percentage of children who don't agree to live by the same rules as the rest of us," adds Worsham. "Parents today are not doing the job they are supposed to do, which is transferring these values to their children. More and more of the children coming to school were born to mothers in their early teens, who did not have their own values together before they had children. As a result, children don't have it quite together. In some cases, the teacher is like a carpenter who is trying to put up a structure before the foundation is properly laid."
Sometimes, when he calls parents to discuss their children's aggressive behavior, he is told by the parent, "I'll beat that child when he gets home."
"But that doesn't solve the problem," says the UTLA member. "It only makes it worse. What happens is that the kid will take it out on someone else and lash out with violence."
"Along with intervention programs for kids, schools need to offer parenting programs," says Worsham. "We cannot continue to accuse each other of not doing our jobs. Once you start blaming, everyone starts defending, and nothing much will happen to create real change. And things have got to change."
A conflict resolution program was supposed to go into effect at his middle school last year, but there wasn't enough money for materials.
"Now we have the money, and we'll focus on sixth-graders," he says. "Eventually we'll have the whole school trained in that mode."
It is difficult to determine which programs are more successful. Schools that receive grants for violence prevention programs are required to establish measureable objectives and guidelines for evaluating results. However, most grants are relatively small and of such short duration that the schools cannot adequately measure results.
Bullying prevention is one of the few programs to have been evaluated and found effective. Even though students at the elementary and middle school levels report that bullying is a major problem, bullying programs are not used by all school districts in the state.
"We definitely need to start talking about bullying," says Rice-Laabs. "It needs to be addressed more, and we should start doing that at the elementary school level."
"We need to go back to the basic needs of our children - having a connectedness to adults," says Lieberman. "Greater numbers of kids are under greater stress with less parental support and supervision. That's why schools are more critical in the equation now. Kids need to feel safe and secure, and connected with adults to cope with the unique crises of childhood today. More than anything else, kids need role models and adults they can talk to."
No matter what program a school adopts, students need to feel included as stakeholders. Students often complain that their voice is not heard until situations culminate in a tragic event.
"For schools to be safe, mutual respect needs to happen," says 16-year-old John Wayne Dawkins, who served on the Safe Schools Task Force. "Teachers need to respect students, or students won't respect teachers. They need to listen to students and not think that, because they are adults, they know everything. It's important for teachers to let students know how much they care about us."
Dawkins, who recently graduated from Yolo High School, believes that "most kids, on average, feel pretty safe at school. And all kids at school want to feel safe."
Where do we go from here?
People in Clear Lake used to talk a great deal about Oak Hill Middle School - the problems on campus, that is. These days people talk about how much safer the school has become.
"We used to have a fair amount of campus-related violence," admits Tom Kenney, the site rep for the Konocti Educators Association. "Now, it's improved so much, people talk about how much it's improved."
The turnaround can be attributed to a variety of factors, says Kenney, who teaches language arts and history. "We had a new administration that was consistent and fair with discipline. They put phones in the classroom so we could dial out. Instead of having a psychologist on site one day a week, we have one on site three days a week so there is a lot more follow-up with the kids. We started a conflict-management program on campus so students can solve their own conflicts peacefully before they get out of hand. We also have a group called Peace Warriors, which teaches students how to cope by using anger management and life skills."
The school also adopted uniforms. "Everyone looks pretty much the same, and there's not a lot to fight over," says Kenney. "We don't have arguing or bickering. The mood on campus is different. It's more mellow."
The campus also started Teen Connection, a program that provides after-school activities, including tutoring, and provides a late bus to take students home. A full-time policeman - a student resource officer - patrols the campus. And clubs have become more active, providing a myriad of activities.
Kids are rewarded for good behavior. "On the first Friday, we took 400 kids to the water park. We said, 'If you don't get in trouble, you can go again at the end of the year.' We offer rewards if we see students picking up garbage or helping each other."
Schools, which are under tremendous pressure to raise test scores and student achievement as part of the accountability movement, may see the issue of school safety as just another burden and something that can sit on the back burner. But others believe that safety and learning go hand in hand.
Gray-Ballard in Montebello says she does not want school safety swept under the rug, even though she teaches at a low-performing school that is under tremendous pressure to improve test scores and achievement.
"Safety is a very important issue. It's the one thing you can't undo. A school that has bad scores can raise those scores. But if a child gets killed on campus, you can never undo what has happened to that child."
