Preventing Violence in Schools
If it had been a plane crash rather than a school shooting
that took the lives of two students in Springfield, Ore.,
the federal government would have sent teams of experts to
dissect the incident to prevent it from happening again.
It’s time to give the same attention to school violence, a national
safety expert said Monday at the Governor’s Safe Schools
Conference at Cobo Hall.
Peter Blauvelt, president of the National Alliance for Safe
Schools, a nonprofit research and training organization based in
College Park, Md., called for federal teams to scrutinize the
people and incidents that led up to the Springfield shooting, in
which a 15-year-old student who had been suspended for
bringing a gun to school is being held as a suspect.
Speaker after speaker Monday referred to the event and urged
parents and people who work with children to reach out to kids
before they threaten to hurt someone — or actually do.
“I’m tired of going to funerals of our young people,” Detroit
Police Chief Isaiah McKinnon said.
Several top law enforcement directors decried the barrage of
violence and the attitude children see and hear in the media that
guns solve problems.
“Some of the music and some of the movies we allow our kids
to listen to and see is pure junk,” said Darnell Jackson, director
of the Michigan Office of Drug Control Policy. “Garbage in,
garbage out.”
Still, it’s not fair to place blame only on the media, Col. Michael
Robinson, director of the Michigan State Police, said. Adults
often send conflicting messages.
“We as parents can’t talk to children about drugs and alcohol
after our sixth Budweiser,” he said. “We can’t talk to young
people about obeying the laws of the land after installing a radar
detector.”
Gov. John Engler gave an address highlighting his three-part
plan to expel students who assault teachers; punish school
administrators who fail to report the number of weapons-related
student expulsions, and require courts to tell schools when
students get in trouble with the law.
“I don’t want some child to be in court on a sexual-assault
charge one day and be walking down the corridor of a school
the next without school officials knowing about it,” he said.
To that end, Blauvelt called for state governments nationwide to
relax confidentiality laws.
“In Prince George’s County, we have five agencies working
with families, and by law, they can’t talk to one another,” he
said. Some parts of the governor’s plan played well in the crowd of
about 800 officials representing schools, law enforcement,
courts and social agencies. Most seemed to agree that students
who hit teachers should be expelled for a school year.
However, many took issue with the idea of schools sending
clearly troubled students home to cause problems in their
neighborhoods.
“We need alternatives for these kids,” Greg Baracy,
superintendent of Wayne-Westland Community Schools, said.
Baracy said educators fear the state will expect them to pay for
the programs out of their existing budgets — which in many
cases would mean cutting programs for kids who don’t get in
trouble.
Todd Lipa, director of youth and family services for the City of
Farmington Hills, said he was concerned Engler’s proposals
weren’t aimed more toward prevention.
“These things don’t happen overnight,” Lipa said. “There’s
usually a trail of things leading up to it. That’s what we’ve got
to do something about.”
Tracy Van Moorlehem can be reached at 1-313-223-4534 or
by E-mail at vanmoo@det-freepress.com
– Tracy Van Moorlehem – Free Press Education Writer