Dealing With School Violence ACED 4710/7900 Classroom and Laboratory Management

Dateline Santee, California Columbine, Colorado Lancaster County, Pennsylvania You’ve heard of these and know what happened here. But what about…

November 19, 1999—Deming, NM-13 year old girl slain. February 29, 2000—Mount Morris Township, MI-Six-year old boy kills another six-year May 26, 2000—Lake Worth, FL—Thirteen-year old boy accused of killing his teacher. (USA Today, March 6, 2001) You’ll be shocked at the number of school shootings. Click here to see a timeline of world-wide school shootings.

Consider the number of school- related violent deaths since School-Related Violent Death Summary Data School YearTotal Deaths (From 8/1/06 to present) Total: retrieved 10/25, 2006

Most of us went to schools in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s where Fistfights were common (and considered normal behavior for boys). Gang fights were not unusual. You may have even dodged a flying bottle or two yourself! Kids killed kids. At a suburban high school where I began my teaching career in the early 80’s in South Louisiana, a sixteen year old boy killed a fellow classmate by shooting him in front of the school. He said that he was tired of being bullied. He was out of jail within about a year. School violence is nothing new!

But is a REAL PROBLEM? Schools often react with “knee-jerk” solutions. Schools have traditionally been reactive, rather than proactive. Schools often hid (hide?) incidents in order to avoid negative publicity. Students often don’t feel safe at school. This can greatly affect learning!

The 1998 Annual Report on School Safety suggests 16 ways to help schools create safe environments. Some of these are: Provide strong administrative support for assessing and enhancing school safety. Redesign the school facility to eliminate dark, secluded and unsupervised spaces. Design an effective school discipline policy. Enlist trained school security professionals… Train school staff… Use alternative school settings for educating violent and weapon-carrying students.

You can view the rest of the suggestions at… ool.html You may want to check it out now. If you are linked to the web, just click the address above.

The suggestions from the 1998 Annual Report go well with the key concepts for a systems approach to school-wide student management plan as discussed on page 418 in the text, Comprehensive Classroom Management (Sixth Edition). (see attached PDF file) Question for thought—Does your school or your child’s school have a clearly understood policy for dealing with school violence? Is it consistent with the suggestions in the text that are discussed on pages ?

In closing, keep the following comments in mind. Incidents of targeted violence at school are rarely impulsive Prior to most incidents, the attacker told someone about his idea/plan. There is no accurate or useful profile of “the school shooter.” Most attackers had previously used guns and had access to them. Most shooting incidents were not resolved by law enforcement intervention. In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity. In a number of cases, having been bullied played a key role in the attack. Taken from Community Update-February/March, 2001