Looking for answers to problem of violent attacks at schools

Jun 1, 1998 12:00 PM, GEORGE PARTINGTON

           

In the wake of the latest school shooting - Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore. at this writing - and after the shock subsides, the questions come: Why? How? and What can be done to stop the trend? During the 1997-98 school year, 18 have died in multiple slayings at the nation's schools, according to the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit organization whose charge is to promote safe schools. "I am struggling to make sense of the senseless, and to understand what could drive a teenager to commit such a terrible act," President Clinton said in his May 23 radio address. As for concrete solutions, Clinton urged Congress to approve a juvenile crime bill that would "ban violent juveniles from buying guns for life." Although security equipment can be part of the solution, few believe it is the answer. Some schools are using security equipment such as closed-circuit television surveillance and metal detectors, but the limitations of such measures are all too evident. The Jonesboro, Ark., attack, in which two boys ages 11 and 13 were charged with killing five, occurred outside the school, which would have rendered metal detectors at school entrances ineffective. Behavioral psychologist Stephen Thomas, an associate professor of community health at Emory University, has spent five years researching youth and violence. In an interview in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he says that metal detectors, in-school security guards and surveillance cameras have not delivered. "It's the equivalent of building prisons. It's the fortress mentality," he says. What can be done? Take students' talk of doing violence seriously, recommends the National School Safety Center. It has been reported that the Thurston High School perpetrator boasted of plans to kill and was caught with a stolen weapon shortly before the May 21 incident, yet no actions were taken. But in the week following the Springfield tragedy, schools were listening. Classes in the rural community of McLouth, Kan., were canceled after a middle school student threatened to bring a gun to school, according to news service reports. On Long Island, N.Y., a student was arrested and charged with harassment after he allegedly e-mailed messages threatening to blow up his school and kill teachers and students. Thomas suggests children should be screened for the effects of exposure to violence before entering middle school, since he views exposure to everyday violence in the real world, as opposed to movies, television and video games, as the root of the problem. "It's not the gun; it's the hand on the gun. If we take back our kids, the streets will take care of themselves," says Thomas.

A deadly record According to the National School Safety Center, as of June 1 there have been 18 deaths involving multiple killings at schools during the 1997-98 school year: - two deaths at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss.; - two deaths at John Glenn High School in Norwalk, Calif.; - three deaths at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky.; - two deaths at Hoboken High School in Hoboken, N.J.; - five deaths at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark.; - two deaths at Philadelphia Elementary School in Pomona, Calif. and - two deaths at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore.

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