Remarks at the Unveiling Ceremony for Public Service Announcements on School Violence

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 23, 1999

August 17, 1999

Leilani, most people twice your age couldn't do that. [Laughter]

Earthquake in Turkey

Ladies and gentlemen, because this is my first chance of the week to speak to the press, before we get on to showing the spot I have to say just a couple of words about the awful earthquake that occurred in Turkey, which I'm sure a lot of you have heard about. It has claimed hundreds of lives and many injuries.

So let me begin by saying, on behalf of all Americans, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Most of you know that Turkey has been our friend and ally for a long time now. We must stand with them and do whatever we can to help them get through this terrible crisis.

We've already released aid for the Turkish Red Crescent. We're sending a team to Turkey to help with search and rescue today. Our Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, and General Hugh Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are actually in Turkey, and they have personally conveyed our willingness to provide additional assistance. General Shelton has met with his Turkish counterpart to offer the military's help with disaster relief. And we will continue to determine what further help is needed. But you can only imagine how difficult this is for them, and we will do what we can to help.

School Violence

Now, let me thank Leilani again and Wyatt Keusch and Harrison Boatwright, who are the young people here with us, who are also in the PSA. I want to thank Secretary Riley and Attorney General Reno, who have really done a wonderful job of trying to have a coordinated and balanced approach to keeping our children safe. Governor Romer, thank you. I want to thank all the people here from the entertainment industry, Jack and Richard and Eddie, Sheila and all the others who stood up. Thank you so much for your generosity and your farsightedness. Thank you, Peggy Conlon, you're a great spokesperson for the people you represent, and you've been great in helping us to get this far. And I want to thank my long-time friend Drew Altman and the Kaiser Foundation for their support in this endeavor. I'd also like to thank the young AmeriCorps members who are here today, who spent a lot of time working with our young people and trying to help them stay safe. This is a very important issue to Hillary, to me, to our entire administration.

In 2 weeks Leilani's going to start at a brand new school. That's probably more scary than introducing the President to a bunch of strangers. [Laughter] And you know, there are always a lot of worries associated with going to a new school: All these strange people - are they going to like me? Am I going to like them? You've got to get to know the teachers; you've just got to find your way around; got to remember the combination to a new locker. [Laughter] Those are the things that our kids ought to be worried about.

They shouldn't be worried about whether what they saw in Littleton or Conyers or what that young madman in Illinois and Indiana or at the Jewish community center in L.A. could possibly happen to them. That's what they shouldn't worry about. But they do because they've seen the press reports and so has our entire Nation.

We're still grieving for the young children, the teacher, the counselor, the receptionist, at the Jewish community center, or the family of that young Filipino-American, Joseph Ileto, who was killed only because he was an Asian-American who worked for his country's government.

Secretary Riley has gone across the country trying to make sure that all of us can put this in some kind of context. The Attorney General has, as well. The crime rate in this country's at a 26-year low; juvenile crime is going down; the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Education show that overall violence has actually decreased in our schools. It's important to tell these children here with us today, and others, that the chances of a tragedy happening are small, less than they used to be, less than one in a million.

But that's not good enough when you see how horrible it is when it occurs. Schools ought to be fight next to our houses of worship as sanctuaries in America. They ought to be places where young people are completely safe and absolutely certain that they are. And each of us bears a responsibility. If Hillary is right that it takes a village to raise a child, it will take our whole national village to keep the Nation's children safe in their schools.

A big part of that responsibility lies with parents and giving parents and their children the capacity and courage to communicate with one another. And that's a big part of why we're here to launch this public service campaign.

As you will see in a moment, the PSA sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, by Children Now, and the Ad Council sends out a powerful call to action: If you're a child and you see someone committing violence or even just talking about it - that's very important, given the evidence we now have about the situation in Colorado and others - if you see someone just talking about it, the best thing you can do is to first tell your parents. And if you're a parent, you have to take it seriously. You have to sit down and talk and listen, to draw your children out, to give them a chance to express their fears, to give you early warning, and then to share that early warning with your children's teachers and principal.