Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, violence prevention efforts such as the activities in the pine grove have become as much a part of the curriculum as reading, writing and arithmetic. With its 19 staff psychologists, scores of counselors, and programs to identify and help emotionally troubled students, Cypress-Fairbanks has one of the most comprehensive violence prevention programs in the country. “They have been a model for crisis prevention and crisis intervention” nationwide, said Howard Knoff of the University of South Florida. Knoff is past president of the National

Assn. of School Psychologists and an expert on school violence. Unlike school systems that drift back to other concerns when the latest tragedy fades from the news, Cypress-Fairbanks has sustained and expanded its commitment to violence prevention for more than two decades.

–