If any of the links provided in the summaries below become inactive and you would like to see the story to which we've linked, please e-mail aseale@hamfish.org to request the specific article.
 May 2004 |
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IN THIS ISSUE:
The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence provides information, research, and support to make schools safer for high achievement. |
The following articles appeared in publication or broadcasts during the month of May 2004. In addition to articles related to reported incidents, we’ve also included several articles that deal with various policy issues which may be of interest to school administrators, educators, parents, students, researchers and policymakers. Those chosen for this summary represent topics on which visitors to the Hamilton Fish Institute Web site have indicated they would like more information. Child’s Play The first annual Danville International Children's Film Festival will highlight films made specifically for children or by children. Held May 21, 22, and 23 in Danville, Calif., 65 films from around the world will be screened. More than half of the films in the line-up are movies made for kids, but the remainder are made by kids. Pennsylvania Department of Education Takes Lead in Nation for Incident Reporting System in Schools A partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the state's 501 school districts has resulted in a much-improved online system for tracking violent incidents in Pennsylvania schools, Secretary of Education Vicki L. Phillips said. SCHOOL VIOLENCE NEWS
It was just chaos Four students were injured, two seriously, when gunmen opened fire in the parking lot of Randallstown High School as the youths were leaving a charity basketball game. The basketball game is an annual college scholarship fund-raiser organized by Del. Robert A. Zirkin of Owings Mills. 3 students expelled for school bomb plot In Michigan, the Lowell Area Schools Board of Education voted to expel three of four boys who administrators said were involved in a plot to set off an explosion using gasoline and instant oatmeal. The fourth student received 45 days in an alternative education placement. The length of the expulsions was dependent on each student's level of involvement. The students hatched and then apparently abandoned a plan to place the ingredients near a building generator, hoping to cause an explosion and chain reaction that would blow up the building, administrators said. Shelby County students on edge after student suspended for written threats A Shelby County High School sophomore was taken into custody and charged with “terroristic threatening.” The 15-year-old female suspect’s notebook was reported to contain "language that dealt with threatening messages to the school and people at the school." Security has been tightened at the school. Surveillance cameras are still in place and teachers continue to monitor the hallways, but now they have a staff member stationed at the entrance to check anyone who comes through the door. Authorities investigate alleged school shooting plot The Kern County Sheriff's Department received information that a group of freshmen at Centennial High School were allegedly making plans to shoot a campus police officer and seven students at the school. One student was arrested and four others suspended after authorities uncovered the alleged plot. Juvenile charged in bomb threats A 15-year old San Marcos High School student was charged with four counts of making terrorist threats after phoning in bomb threats to police. The student, a juvenile, was taken into custody and incarcerated at the Hays County Juvenile Detention Center. Making a terrorist threat is a Class A Misdemeanor. Students caught up in plots of possible school violence High school students in Kamas and Parowan were arrested and suspended from school in separate alleged plots of school violence. In Kamas, two 15-year-old sophomores were taken into custody after a locker search at South Summit High School allegedly uncovered drawings that glorified "violent overthrow of the government, murder, suicide, sodomy, war, gun use and vigilante justice," according to a statement issued by the Summit County Sheriff's Office. … In Parowan, a high school student was arrested on suspicion of making death threats against more than a dozen classmates. Parowan High School principal Scott Doubek said students informed school officials early in the week of a "hit list" allegedly written by the suspect. BULLYING Charles Lind, coordinator of the King County School Violence Program and senior deputy prosecutor at Juvenile Court, said that of his 18 active cases, seven involve girl-on-girl attacks. Still, the effect never dulls. Reports last week that three Mount Vernon middle-school girls jumped a schoolmate and beat her senseless at a dance for honor students left him stunned. Washington state doesn't track school discipline incidents by gender, but educators around the region say they can't help noting a trend. Family Files Suit Against School District Over Bullying A family in the Kansas City area school district have filed suit against the school district, its superintendent, members of the school board, the principal of the junior high, and the principal and vice principal of the high school charging that they failed to stop name-calling and other bullying that forced the child to drop out of high school. The suit in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, alleges the child's parents repeatedly asked school and district officials in Tonganoxie, Kansas, for help. The family, whose name isn't disclosed, seeks unspecified damages. Peers can stop bullies Experts say, bystanders, who may account for 60 percent to 70 percent of school-age children, hold the key to stopping bullying. "Research shows that when a peer tells a bully to cut it out, it's much more effective than when adults do," said Jim Bozigar, a Pittsburgh child psychologist. The fact that bystanders, even friends, don't come forward can be a frustrating, painful experience for victims and their parents. But the reason may have less to do with the victim and more do to with the personality of the bystander, experts say. School disciplines student accused in attack A student with cerebral palsy was suspended for reporting a bullying attack while her attacker remained in school. The victim told an assistant principal that a boy pulled a knife on her and set her hair on fire. The interim principal admitted her staff did not call police, did not interview potential witnesses, and did not conduct a proper investigation, 7NEWS reported. … According to statistics, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School had the most fights of any school in the state. Sherrie Glowczewski attributes that in part to the bullying climate that pervades the school, a point disputed by DPS spokesman Mark Stevens. 1 in 10 Youths Facing Mental Distress A report released in London, Ontario, a province of Canada, shows that one in 10 teens is grappling with at least three mental-health issues. The centre's report comes on the heels of a London study that found teens in London are at a greater risk for depression than their peers living in other areas of Ontario. The report, released by Investing in Children, found that 15.7 per cent of London teens between the ages of 15 and 19 suffer from depression, compared with a provincial average of 11.4 per cent. Alarm over rise in school violence Violence is on the increase in schools throughout the Kingdom, with some students using weapons against other students, teachers and property, sources here said. In several recently reported incidents students and teachers were attacked inside and outside the school grounds or had their cars damaged or burned. High court awards damages over bullying death The Sendai High Court overturned a 2002 lower court ruling and ordered seven people to pay a total of about 57.6 million yen to parents of a 13-year-old boy who was killed in a bullying incident in 1993 in Shinjo, Yamagata Prefecture. …The boy suffocated Jan 13, 1993, after being rolled up in a mattress in the school gymnasium's storeroom. The seven, then aged 12-14, were taken into protective custody five days after the incident for injuring and confining Yuhei and causing his death. School violence on increase A new Scottish Executive report reveals a "rising tide" of classroom indiscipline. Education inspectors claim the problems could lead to poor learning and stressed-out staff. In Scotland on average one child is excluded from school every four minutes. And there were 7,000 violent incidents against school staff in 2002/03. The HM Inspectorate of Education report said unruly behaviour tends to be "associated with a gradually rising tide of continual low-level discipline, which, over time, leads to a poor environment for learning and high stress levels among staff." (This article is no longer available online but is available by specific request to aseale@hamfish.org)
For questions or feedback regarding these news summaries, please contact Allison Seale. The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence provides information, research, and support to make schools safer for high achievement.
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PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES
Angels Keep School Pupils Safe A school in England has partnered with police and has initiated a new plan to reduce bullying. Eastbourne Comprehensive School has secretly recruited several students to help protect classmates. A Website was created that allows the students to report bullying incidents anonymously. The school's deputy head teacher Geof Sewell said great care is taken before dealing with any information to prevent malicious complaints and to keep the “angels’” identities safe. The 800-pupil school was awarded nearly a half million dollar grant last year to improve its security and make teachers and pupils feel safer. In addition to the angel program, some of the money was set to go towards buying CCTV and special "invisible" fencing, and door locks opened by swipe cards or PIN numbers. Students at the school welcomed the measures and said their effect had already been felt in the classrooms. Babies do teaching in grassroots empathy classrooms A 9-month-old baby and his parents have been making monthly visits to a sixth and seventh grade class since September as part of the Roots of Empathy Program (ROE), a non-profit initiative to teach three-to 14-year-olds about human development and emotional well-being. The program aims to foster empathy, thereby reducing aggression and bullying in schools. School counselors stretched thin As they help students deal with college anxieties, peer pressures and troubles at home, school counselors see another crisis emerging - their own. … Nationwide, the ratio of students to counselors is about 477-to-1, an average that's dropped since 1992 but is still almost twice the 250-to-1 recommended by the profession. In states such as California - which has just under 1,000 kids per counselor, the heaviest load in the country - counseling is again on the list of possible budget cuts. Dress Codes Lamar revises dress code The Lamar County School Board voted to revise the district's dress code policy to make sure that all students wear appropriate undergarments and that all shirts are tucked in. The suggested changes are in response to students wearing low-riding pants, thong underwear, and high-rising shirts. In March 2003, the Lamar County School District formed a committee of teachers, parents, students and community members to research uniform policies at each of the district's schools. Surveys were sent out to parents and more than 75 percent of those returned were in favor of uniforms, but the school board decided in January not to have a uniform dress code policy in effect for the 2004-05 school year. Muslim student, Oklahoma district settle hijab lawsuit The Muskogee school system has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum and change its dress code to settle a lawsuit involving a sixth-grade Muslim girl who was suspended for wearing a religious head scarf to school. … The agreement requires the Muskogee Public School District to change its dress code to allow exceptions for religious reasons, said R. Alexander Acosta, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights. Zero Tolerance Student suspended for bringing small baseball bat to school A sophomore in Fort Worth, Tex. was pulled out of school and later suspended for having a wooden baseball bat, no longer than 8 inches long, in his car. The bat, which was visible through a car window, spurred Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School officials to pull the student from his car so they could search his vehicle. Under the Fort Worth school district's zero-tolerance policy, the student was immediately suspended. Officials will decide whether the bat is considered a weapon that would merit punishment, including placement in an alternative school or expulsion for up to a year. Researcher says zero tolerance in schools provokes backlash New research in Canada suggests the hard-line approach to discipline -- the most common tactic in classrooms -- is an ineffective way to deal with students, especially teens keen to test the boundaries. "We've been taught that you have to have order and control. But schools should be like a family. Rules aren't the important thing in families, it's relationships," said researcher Wanda Cassidy of Simon Fraser University's faculty of education. (This article is no longer available online but is available by specific request to aseale@hamfish.org) Students charged for taping teacher to chair Five high school seniors in Missouri have been charged with assault for allegedly trying to tape a teacher to a chair. The students, all 18 years old, apparently thought it was just a prank, but they now face possible jail time and fines. Zeroing in on zero tolerance "Zero tolerance" sounds simple: reduce certain crimes by making them automatically punishable. Critics argue simplicity is why the idea fails. … Proponents argue that dangerous times require strict measures. … But critics say zero tolerance has become a panacea for school districts who'd rather expel and suspend than find constructive ways to deal with the juvenile's behavior. Technology Web of violence It was a clash born in cyberspace. But on March 3, the profanity-laden put-downs that had been exchanged over the Internet escalated into a street fight in Garland with low-tech weapons such as fists, bats and clubs. Several young people were injured, including one whose arm was broken. School district urges cell phone crackdown Last year the School Board voted to let students bring cell phones to school to increase the safety of students and allow them to stay in touch with their parents. But the students have found other uses for the ubiquitous devices, and school administrators are not pleased. The policy bans use of the phones during school hours, but that hasn't kept students from bullying each other with electronic messages, taking inappropriate photos and messaging each other during tests. During the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, text messaging prompted one high school to invalidate the test. "We didn't make it specific enough," said April Prestipino, the district's director of student services. "The way we wrote up the policy, it's difficult to enforce. (Cell phones) need to be put away." Requiring students to move the phones from their hips to their backpacks, purses and lockers will make it easier to catch them using the phones, the administrators say. Violators could have their phones confiscated for the day or face other disciplinary measures. Bullying moves to the Internet School officials in Fort Smith told television station KHBS that some students are taking the age-old practice of bullying to the Internet. "Cyberbullying" is the latest trend in childhood harassment, according to experts. Police said the method of harassment involves threats made in chat rooms and through instant messaging. Walnut Creek eighth-grader arrested over cartoon Police arrested an eighth-grader suspected of making death threats against a teacher at Walnut Creek Intermediate School. The 14-year-old boy was suspended and taken to the police station in handcuffs Wednesday morning after school officials learned he had posted an animated cartoon with a reference to killing a teacher on the Internet. The cartoon was part of a series spoofing teachers at the school and was not intended to be taken seriously, the suspect and the boy’s mother said. They believe school officials and police overreacted. GANGS Gangs in Northern Virginia are a growing threat to residents' safety and are recruiting children as young as 7 years old, law enforcement officials said. … Gangs, which police say are growing in size and boldness, usually commit violent crimes against other gangs, but bystanders are at risk. Kids need help expressing their grief when friends die Psychologists and counselors say the grieving process can be different for youngsters than for adults, who have words and life experiences to help them cope. Children and teenagers, especially those who've experienced previous trauma or stress, may find themselves derailed, may feel the loss profoundly but be unable -- or not have an outlet -- to talk about it. For many inner-city children, the grieving doesn't stop. Gun violence has taken the lives of at least eight teenagers in San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point in the past six months, prompting a school in nearby Visitacion Valley to plan for a full-time grief counselor. Teens can manage anger if they learn skills Expressing anger is normal, especially for teens, says Jeff Dolgan, chief of psychology at Children's Hospital in Denver. But when kids seem generally angry and react to lots of little things, it can indicate a problem, he says. Parents should also be worried if their child is physically violent: punching walls, hitting others or throwing things. Lesson One: Self Control According to a survey released by the Public Agenda on May 11, 77 percent of the middle and high school teachers surveyed felt that their teaching would be more effective if they did not have to spend so much time dealing with behavior problems. More than half of the teachers surveyed report that behavior problems in schools result from teachers who are lax in their discipline because they cannot count on support from parents or teachers.
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Page Updated: March 07, 2005
