The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

District cites proactive policies to curtail violence

By Steve Enders

A boy from Long Island is arrested after threatening to kill his teachers and fellow students and blow up the school; classes are canceled for a day in Kansas after a student threatens to bring a gun into class; an Oregon student barges into his high school cafeteria, holding two rifles and a handgun. He fires several rounds of ammunition, kills two of his peers and injures 28 others.

These and other similar incidents have rocked the nation over the past few months, leaving parents and students all over the country wondering: Could it happen here?

As evidenced by the recent rash of incidents, violent crime in schools can happen anywhere--and local high school administrators agree that it could happen here.

"There's no guarantee of safety," Ray Ramsey, Lynbrook High's student-conduct liaison, says.

Fremont High School District officials are treating the possibility of teen violence in their schools as a reality.

Assistant superintendent Mike Hawkes echoes Ramsey's comment by saying, "My real fear is that we don't believe it can happen here. But we've taken steps to address the issue."

One of the most important steps the district has taken to prevent violence on campus is to create student liaisons, Hawkes says. Held by a staff member, the position serves as an alternative to having a uniformed police officer patrol the high schools. The liaison "makes connections" with kids and helps them address issues.

Ramsey is one of eight student liaisons in the district. He says the positions were created about 1980, a time when guidance counselors and student deans were becoming scarce.

Ramsey points to high schools that he's seen in Los Angeles as models of what he doesn't want to see here--schools that look like prisons.

Ramsey says that many of those L.A. schools have fences that are nearly impossible to climb and only have two gates--there's one way in and one way out. During the day those gates are closed, the kids are locked in and nobody is let onto the school grounds without permission.

Ramsey says, "I hope we don't ever get to that. Thankfully, it's not even being considered."

One reason it's not being considered is that statistics show FUHSD's five high schools have relatively few incidents of violence.

The district logs the number of violent crimes committed by students each year, which are then reported to the state and U.S. governments.

From 1995-96 to 1996-97 the number of non-drug-related expulsions in the FUHSD dropped from 66 to 47. The biggest drop was seen in the category of causing or attempting to cause physical injury, which went from 18 expulsions to eight.

Expulsions for possession of dangerous objects were down from 29 to 25, and expulsions for robbery were down from eight the previous year to only one during 1996-97.

At the state level, reports show a drop in student crime. Still, in 1996-97, there were 17,334 cases of reported battery in California schools, 2,294 reports of assault with a deadly weapon and four homicides.

Lynbrook's Ramsey says he and the other liasons "keep an ear to the ground" to stop conflict before it starts.

"My responsibility is to be proactive and diligent and to be aware of situations," he says. He does this by hanging out on campus all day and forming relationships with students. After he's gained the students' trust, they come to him with their problems or inform him of problems with other students.

The liaisons are but one link in the FUHSD's extensive chain of violence and conflict prevention. At the top is the board of trustees, which district officials say deserve credit for creating policy that has maintained a proactive stance against violent behavior.

Initiating rules such as the "zero tolerance" policy has much to do with the low crime statistics the district sees every year, according to district officials. Zero tolerance is a policy districts throughout the country have adopted. Its message: If you lay hands on another student or teacher for any reason, you're going to be suspended or expelled.

Fremont High's principal, Pete Tuana, says that this aggressive policy has been a key in keeping "unmitigated attacks" at bay.

"We're in the business of kids," Tuana says. "I'm a parent. I want our kids to go to school and come home in the same shape. We don't tolerate crime."

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 10, 1998.
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