Re: School Violence

["Wayne H Beebe" <whbeebe@turbonet.com>]

Good points.  Nevertheless, some of the reported incidents nationwide have indicated that the kids were doing it to get their jollies.  I just don't want to see this become another Salem witch trial.

----- Original Message -----

From: John and Laurie Danahy

To: Wayne H Beebe ; Vision 2020

Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 1999 1:17 PM

Subject: Re: School Violence

I do not think we are overreacting at all.  The issue here is not the care and feeding of the individual student that makes threats, whatever the reasons they might have.  The issue is the safety and security of all the rest of the students, teachers, and other employees in the school.  We are not only responsible for creating an environment where student, etc are safe, but for creating an environment where they FEEL safe too.

Expulsions from school are often not permanent, and students can reenter if they meet conditions set by the board.  Often these conditions include anger management and counseling.  The expulsion serves mainly to focus everyone's attention including the student

John

John and Laurie Danahy
jdanahy@turbonet.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Wayne H Beebe

To: Vision 2020

Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 1999 7:52 AM

Subject: School Violence

A couple of weeks ago a 13 year old Pullman youth was expelled from school and charged with felony harassment.  Yesterday the Deary High School was locked down because of rumored threats.  Aren't we overreacting a bit?  I can see some manipulative youths using this for kicks, starting rumors just to see how adults will react.

 

While I would agree that SV needs to be taken seriously, isn't there a better way: having anger management programs for the whole student body, putting a peer conflict resolution team in place, identifying problem youth that need special attention.  Even then if there is a threat to work at finding a counseling or remedial program that will help rather than punish the youth.

 

Any thoughts?