Across the country, innovative steps to end schoolyard killings As the last bullet ricocheted through the latest

schoolyard this spring, parents and teachers across the country were feeling

helpless against the onslaught of violence that suddenly swept through

suburban education. How can you protect innocent children at a time when

American households still have more guns than computers and the average child

has seen more than 100,000 acts of violence on television by age 12?

Yet, as summer comes, authorities are pointing to a growing number of

experimental solutions that are showing promise and could be adopted by other

communities before schools reopen this fall. No one claims they will be

perfect, but they would surely reduce the carnage of this past year when 70

people were gunned down–22 of them killed–by young teenagers in a spate of

copycat killings.

Ronald Stephens of the National School Safety Center, associated with

Pepperdine University in California, points to a high school in the nearby San

Fernando Valley as a model of creativity. There, a dynamic principal (and

former reserve deputy sheriff), Robert Kladifko, has introduced a program

called WARN–Weapons Are Removed Now–to break the code of silence that

teenagers adopt when they hear friends threatening violence. Students from

Reseda High run the program, visiting local elementary and middle schools to

teach the importance of keeping weapons out and the moral correctness of

reporting on those who bring them in.

Crackling excitement. A second initiative at Reseda High is called

the Principal’s Inner-Ear Council, a group of 30 or so students including

known gang members and popular kids commanding respect; they have a direct

line to the principal and help him keep order. Kladifko fairly crackles with

excitement as he recalls a student recently bringing a butcher knife to

school and a council member putting a stop to trouble. The key, he says, is to

give students a sense of ownership in their own school.

Elsewhere, some 34 states, led by Florida, North Carolina, Texas,Colorado, and

Arizona, are experimenting with the appointment of “school resource officers.”

The SRO is a law enforcement officer trained to spot and counsel troubled

teenagers, educate others on violence, and arrest those who commit crimes. In

the past two years, reported firearm possession has dropped 50 percent in

North Carolina schools, and principals identified SROs as the single most

important factor in deterring crime.

Texas is also trying out a law that requires local law enforcement officers to

notify school administrators within 24 hours of arresting a student.Previous

laws governing juveniles kept these matters secret so that administrators

often missed warning signs from high-risk kids.

Programs like these should not relieve parents of assuming primary

responsibility for the behavior of their children. The percentage of

households with guns is actually down these days, but in homes that do have

guns, owners are building small arsenals–an average of five weapons under

each roof. No wonder that the schoolyard killers this school year found it so

easy to get their weapons. Parents who negligently permit a teenager to leave

home with a gun should be just as legally liable for the consequences as

parents who allow teenagers to drink at their home and then kill on the

highways. Nor should preventive programs remove the onus from the entertainment

industry. Despite repeated promises to the contrary, leaders in that

industry continue to pour out films and videos hooking people on the notion

that violence is just a part of life. They should spend a little time in

Jonesboro and Springfield.

Defenders of the status quo dismiss all these concerns,

arguing–correctly–that the overall crime rate is coming down. What they fail

to point out is that the rate of firearm deaths among children under 15 years

of age, incredibly, is still 12 times higher in the United States than in 25

other industrialized nations combined. This school year brought a flood of

copycat killings; now is the time to begin a new season of copycat solutions.

– David Gergen US News and World Report