Lessons in Respect
Educators say kindness can help stem violence
While many school district officials spent the summer installing
crisis plans, automatic locks and surveillance cameras, teachers
made plans to install a new kind of security in their students —
trust and communication.
Nearly one third of metro Detroit districts will return to
classrooms this week. They will see a greater focus on safety,
including random locker searches, uniformed police patrols, the
promotion of mutual respect and the development of
teacher/student relationships.
Although teachers are generally supportive of the new high-tech
security measures, many argue that preventing school violence
goes beyond installing cameras.
Many teachers said a positive atmosphere makes students less
prone to negative acts and more comfortable with teachers.
Chuck Londo, a Lake Orion teacher and a member of the Lapeer
Board of Education, said creating such an environment means
relying more on good faculty members and less on extra
security measures.
“We have a bunch of authority figures,” he said, noting
counselors, teachers and principals. “We don’t need to overdo
it.”
In the 16,600-student Dearborn Public Schools, there are no
metal detectors or video surveillance equipment. Superintendent
Jeremy Hughes said the district’s crisis plan was being
reworked since the Columbine shootings.
Hughes said Dearborn police have school building maps, and
SWAT teams have practiced maneuvers inside schools. But,
Hughes said, the district, which resumes classes Aug. 31, also
was studying how to identify students at risk of becoming
violent and the best way of helping them.
The district also has the TEAM — Together Everyone Achieves
More — program started last year to provide a transition into
high school for selected ninth-graders. Students work to
develop positive attitudes, explore careers, solve problems,
make decisions and learn conflict resolution.
Several schools have forged a stronger relationship with local
police departments this year, either by adopting regular police
liaisons or developing comprehensive crisis plans.
Last week, West Bloomfield Police Chief Ronald Cronin
conducted a practice raid at the city’s local high school. Officers
were put in a situation similar to the shootings at Columbine
High School, in Littleton, Colo., last spring. In the practice
raid, it took officers 45 minutes to catch the two gunmen, but
one officer was shot.
Building Character
Yet West Bloomfield High School, which reopens Aug. 31,
also has taken the feel-good approach to prevention of school
violence. This year, the school’s character education program
will focus on building respect and acceptance among students
and faculty.
The program acknowledges students and faculty members who
go out of their way to make others feel welcome.
As a result of the program’s efforts, West Bloomfield students
will be greeted on their first day of school by a banner stating,
“We’re glad you’re here; the difference is respect.”
Although several students admit that last school year ended with
a lot of tension, they say the summer has given them a chance to
regroup.
Aaron Seabron, a sophomore at West Bloomfield High, said it
will be old friends and not new security cameras that he’ll be
looking for on the first day of school. “I’m going back to
school optimistic, as usual,” Aaron said.
Still, he admitted that the images of Columbine and Conyers,
Ga., “will always be in the back of my mind.”
Government statistics indicate gun-related problems in schools
have lessened, despite high-profile incidents such as the
Columbine shooting, in which two heavily armed students
killed 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education said 3,930
students were expelled last year for bringing a firearm to
school, down 31 percent from the previous year.
Aaron, like many local high school students, said he feels more
comfortable with all the new security measures schools are
implementing, but that they won’t do much to keep a frustrated
student from losing control.
Julie Rankin, a 1999 graduate of Seaholm High School in
Birmingham, recalled the extra security measures the school
took after it received a bomb threat earlier this year. Students
were not allowed to carry backpacks or leave school grounds
during lunch, and parents and police filled the schools for extra
security. Although several parents hoped some of these
measures would carry over when Birmingham schools reopen
Aug. 30, administrators reserve them for emergency situations.
Rankin said the extra measures were good to calm anxieties but
not much else.
“They had to do that to get the kids to come to school …but if
someone feels really strongly about doing this, they’re going to
do it.”
Still other students are worried administrators may take security
a step too far. Many cited forbidding backpacks, random locker
searches and requiring students to be escorted by hall monitors
to the bathroom as security measures that were impractical.
Parents Worry
Many parents, however, have a different opinion.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as going overboard,” said
Kathy Seabron, Aaron Seabron’s mother.
Kathy Seabron said suburban schools are getting a taste of what
those in the city deal with on a daily basis. She is a teacher at
Detroit’s Mumford High School, which has metal detectors.
According to a Free Press poll in February, 87 percent of
Detroiters surveyed said improving safety and school security
was very important to the reform of the Detroit public schools.
The district’s preliminary school improvement plan says that
conflict avoidance and conflict resolution programs should be
offered in schools and zero-tolerance policy should be enforced
for any violence on school property, whether against other
students, teachers or staff.
The new security cameras in West Bloomfield High, Seabron
said, are proof that this school year will be different, as
administrators become more alert to the possibilities of violence.
Of her son and other suburban students, she said, “They have
been shielded from things like this. When a place looks nice,
you get the feeling that you’re safe. It’s a false sense of
security.”
Although suburban students may be just getting used to the
issues of security, it seems that all teachers are heading into this
school year with the same philosophy on preventing violence.
No matter what changes are made in security measures within
the school, teachers say they have always been aware of the
tremendous responsibility that comes with their job.
“Think of all the community gives us,” said Brett Saunders, a
teacher at Lake Orion High School for 31 years. “We have their
kids.”
Cecil Angel and Reuters contributed to this report.
– Simone Sebastian