Reducing violence in U.S. schools

This program emphasizes prevention and gives students the skills to build better relationships. Student mediators handle common disputes between students, such as rumors, damaged friendships, misunderstandings, arguments, fights, bullying and disputes over personal property.

The district also began strategic planning, involving all constituent groups. The safety component of the strategy called for mediation and conflict resolution programs on every campus, underwritten by grants as well as district funds. In addition, the community and the students expressed a desire for firm policies against violence, so the district set about writing those policies and then making sure that all the stakeholders-including the unions and the community-bought in.l9

Hundreds of residents attended public hearings about a board proposal to bring police sniffing dogs on campuses. The community was assured that the policy would be noninvasive, that the dogs would search lockers and vehicles only for weapons and for drugs. If either were found, the student would be removed from class and the parents informed. As a result of the policy, students know that school is not a place to smoke, drink or carry weapons. All of this came about as a result of creating labor-management peace; otherwise, the constituent groups in the district would have been unable to trust each other sufficiently to work together.

Given their core educational mission, schools should be uniquely well-suited to preventing violence. As the Johnsons point out, allowing students "to fail, remain apart from classmates and be socially inept and have low self-esteem, increases the probability that students will use destructive conflict strategies."20 On the other hand, an ability to deploy higher-order reasoning and analytical skills in order to solve problems is closely linked with peaceful outcomes. Thus, the propensity for violence, both in school and in later life, can best be cured in the long run by enlarging students' understanding and selfconfidence. Until that goal is achieved, however, it is prudent for school districts to rely for their safety on welldrilled, consensus-based violence prevention and response teams.

' "Deadly Fantasy of a TeenAger Became a Reality," New York Times, May 24, 1998.

Duncan Chappell and

Vittorio Di Martino, Violence at Work, International Labor Organization, Geneva, 1998.

' "Violence on the Job-A Global Problem," ILO Statement, July 20, 1998.

4 T.C. Pauchant and I.I. Mitroff, Transforming the CrisisProne Organization (Jossey-Bass, 1993).

5 Speech in Worcester, MA, August, 1998.

6 "Study: U.S. TV Exposes Young Children To Violence,"

Reuters, June 22, 1998.

7 "Survey: I Million Students Took Guns to School in '97," Reuters, June 19, 1998.

8 "Schools Faced With Conflicting Pressures in Dealing With Troubled Students," New York Times, May 23, 1998.

9 "Trenton Debates Requiring Guns That Sense Owners," New York Times, September 24,1998.

10 K. Dwyer, D. Osher, C. Warger, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C., August, 1998. Supra, note 1.