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Illinois School Board Journal
July/August 2003

Preventing violence at the school level

by Sherwood C. Dees

Sherwood "Woody" Dees retired as superintendent of Limestone Community High School in Bartonville, Illinois, and is currently interim superintendent at Midwest Central Community Unit School District 191 in Manito.

While The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States identified 10 "key findings" on school violence, the 2002 report from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education lacked recommendations for how school districts should address those findings.

Why would two respected national agencies take three years to study 37 incidents of targeted school violence, summarize them into key findings and not suggest how school personnel might prevent future incidents? Perhaps they felt implementing preventive measures was an obvious extension of the findings. Perhaps they thought their suggestions would be interfering with "local control." Perhaps they felt recommendations would pressure already financially strapped schools to employ even more personnel.

Whatever their motives, recommendations need to be spelled out clearly to local school personnel. Failure to do so only denies accountability.

Here are the 10 "key findings" and my suggestions for local school districts:

1. Incidents of targeted school violence at school were seldom sudden, impulsive acts.

If the violence wasn't a sudden, impulsive act, then it was planned and purposeful. In other words, the perpetrators knew in advance what they wanted to do and developed strategies to implement their acts. Something must have triggered those extreme acts.

Classroom teachers, guidance counselors and school personnel who deal with discipline issues may pick up clues about a student's frustration in a confrontational situation. It may be a student-to-student problem or frustration with a particular teacher or administrator. The implication is that some disagreement precipitated the violence and that the perpetrator obviously felt the grievance was not fairly considered.

Of the surviving school violence perpetrators, most stated afterward that they just "didn't know what else to do" and "felt no one was listening to their problem." Consequently, they took matters into their own hands. Having unresolved grievances reviewed by an impartial person, especially one the offended student trusts, may help avoid a tragic ending.

2. Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker's idea and/or plan.

Schools teach students everything from sophisticated calculus to sewing on a button. Why can't we teach the difference between "narcing" on a fellow student smoking in the restroom and saving 13 classmates' lives by advising school personnel that a friend is talking about doing something very harmful? If not addressed in such straightforward terms, students may always believe "narcing is narcing" regardless of the act.

Schools need lessons about when it is inappropriate to keep quiet. Schools also need lessons about when it is heroic to help prevent a tragedy. This lesson is not difficult to teach, and it is not difficult for students to understand. But if it is not taught, it may not be learned just from history or past experiences. Teach it annually.

3. Most attackers did not threaten targets directly prior to advancing the attack.

Perhaps the implication is what not to do. Don't assume that if students didn't threaten the target that they don't plan to harm them. Perhaps a more likely perpetrator is the student who doesn't lash out verbally.

Peer mediation may be effective in forcing a student to talk about his feelings about a grievance. Not telling anyone how upset they really are may only compound their frustration to the rupture point of attacking the person they feel wronged them. Just telling how upset one is may relieve their frustration enough to prevent violence and also may alert school personnel to the intensity of the student's feeling about the grievance.

The adage of "leave it alone and it'll go away" isn't the best advice for today's students.

4. There is no accurate or useful "profile" of students who engaged in targeted school violence.

While teachers and school disciplinarians have a good track record of anticipating which students will participate in classroom misbehavior and general school misconduct, predicting which student will resort to a violent attack is not so predictable. We cannot and should not use the correlation "he did it before, therefore he likely did it again." Perpetrators of school violence did not climb the ladder of progressive misconduct, culminating in one heinous act. But as the next key finding reveals, they did not just explode out of the woodwork either!

5. Most attackers engaged in behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help.

Even more alarming is the fact that among the concerned "others" was at least one adult in 88 percent of the school violence cases! But those adults either underestimated or dismissed the gravity of the student's desperation.

Were the adults just not sharp enough to analyze the situation properly? Were they too busy to take the time to hear the student out? Too disinterested to take them seriously? Or were they too afraid to get involved? Were they too afraid to cause a big commotion?

After school violence erupts, these sound like weak excuses. School personnel and parents must treat today's teenagers and their grievances seriously, take time to hear their concerns and treat their opinions with respect. Anything less is opening the door for an unwanted backlash.

6. Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Many had considered or attempted suicide.

Suicide is not a "gray area." Suicide, contemplated or attempted, is a clear indication of a student's attitude of "giving up." There is nothing to lose.

An attack at school on another student or teacher is way down the roster of importance compared to taking one's own life. While schools currently have strict policies barring students who use drugs, alcohol or weapons at school events, practically no school districts view a student who has contemplated or attempted suicide as a threat to others, only to themselves. Mental health professionals should help propose safeguards for the re-entry to the school setting of children who have contemplated or attempted suicide. And the safety of other students and staff should be their prime motivation in recommending re-entry.

7. Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack.

School personnel must get out of their classrooms and offices to observe students in social settings such as before school visiting, passing time between classes and during lunch periods. These are the times when students interact with each other! These are the likely times when students will bully, ridicule and/or intimidate other students.

Although students can be clever and slick, these incidents are detectable to sharp supervisors. They tend not to be one-time offenses, but tend to escalate in severity and frequency if undeterred. Left undetected, humiliation can accumulate to desperation. The key to preventing student humiliation: supervision, supervision, supervision!

8. Most attackers had access to and used weapons prior to the attack.

Although gun control is a hotly debated national topic, it is not a panacea for school personnel. Guns used for hunting are a major part of the social fabric in rural America. It is unconscionable to believe that guns will not be in students' homes. They will be. So let's not waste time debating our students' access to guns.

Let's spend time making sure parents realize that regardless of how well they have taught gun safety at home, their children are still children. And children can make bad decisions, especially when they feel they are in desperate situations.

Schools should reinforce to parents the importance of locking weapons in secure places, maintaining strict control of the keys and securing ammunition separate from firearms. Guns are not like liquor or cigarettes at home. Guns are more deadly in teenagers' hands and have more serious legal implications for parents. Protecting a teenager's access to guns is simply protecting yourself and your family from a lifetime of misery.

9. In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity.

Re-read #2!

10. Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.

The brevity of school violence incidents is why this key finding is true. There simply was not enough response time for law enforcement to physically travel to the scene of the incident before it had ended. Consequently, my recommendation goes in two opposite directions.

One, schools should implement all other preventive measures -- diagnosing student unrest, peer mediation, strict supervision, proper treatment of student grievances -- in hopes of an event not occurring. The other would be complete entry surveillance by armed police officers, such as courthouses and airports have employed. Some schools have done this. But most schools desire some semblance of inviting their citizens and parents into their buildings as free and equal partners in education. Consequently, most schools have resisted making their building a military fortress and searching the very patrons from which their livelihood depends!

The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative also contained other important statistics, which should be of value to school personnel. Most of the attacks came either before school or in the morning. Supervision early in the day is more vital than post-school scrutiny. The perpetrator cannot wait to attack. After all, he has already waited about one whole day since he planned the event!

Almost all (95 percent) of the attackers were currently enrolled students. School personnel should focus all efforts, whether they be program or security oriented, on their own pupils. Outsiders are not our schools' main enemy.

Only boys to date have committed targeted school violence. Consequently, rising frustration levels in boys involved in unresolved grievances pose a greater threat to school violence than with female students.

While the time of the school year went unmentioned in the report, school personnel easily relate frequency distribution of incidents to the calendar. Over half of the incidents occurred in the semester-ending months of December and May! Anyone who has worked in a high school realizes that these months are "pressure cooker" times. It's "the jig is up" time. It's "pass or get out" time. Little wonder why teenagers erupted most frequently during these months. Even teachers and administrators erupt during these times.

Just another indication that time still must be found to properly address student grievances, even at the busiest times of the school year.

Source

United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education, The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States, Washington, D.C., May 2002