Remarks at the White House Conference on School Safety

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 19, 1998

You know, I have to say this - and I'm not blaming anybody because I've done it myself, so I will say I will posit the fact that I have done this - but when people are in elected office and they hear about a problem like this and they know the people they're doing their best to represent are afraid, the first impulse is always to say, "Well, if we just punish them a little harder and a little faster and kept them a little longer, everything would be all right." Now, the truth is that some people are so far gone and what they have done is so heinous that that is the appropriate thing to do. But I have never met a police officer in my life who believed that we could punish our way out of our social problems without other appropriate actions - not one time. And I think we're all here because we believe in a good society we would stop more bad things from happening in the first place.

The report that's being released today tells us that the vast majority of our schools are safe, that the majority of our children are learning in peace and security. But it also tells us that in too many schools students feel unsafe. Even if they're not, if they feel unsafe, it's going to have a huge detrimental impact on their ability to learn and grow and relate to their fellow students in an appropriate way.

In too many schools, there is still too much disrespect for authority and still too much intolerance of other students from different backgrounds. Our schools, all of them, must be sanctuaries of safety and civility and respect. Now, here are some things that I think we can do to help you meet the challenge.

First, in the schools with the biggest violence problems, security has to be the top priority. Today, I am pleased to announce a new $65-million initiative to help schools hire and train 2,000 new community police and school resource officers to work closely with principals and teachers and parents and the students themselves to develop antiviolence and antidrug plans, based on the actual needs of individual schools. Community policing has helped to make our streets safe. It can work for our schools, too.

I'm also very pleased that Congressman Jim Maloney of Connecticut has sponsored a bill to help schools use the funds available for hiring the community police officers to hire officers to work with the schools. This bill was passed by the House and Senate and it will get up here to me in a day or two and I'll look forward to signing it into law.

Second, we have to help schools recognize the early warning signs of violence and to respond to violence when it does strike. Today I want to tell you that soon I will be sending to Congress a plan to create a School Emergency Response to Violence, the SERV program, that will work just as FEMA does when it responds to natural disasters. Project SERV will travel to where the trouble is and help communities respond quickly to school violence, from helping schools to meet increased security needs, to providing emergency and longer-term mental health crisis counseling for students, faculty, and their families.