Teachers Get Support on Security Plea : Burbank: State statistics showing a rise in campus crime bolster teachers’ demands for better security at schools, but administrators say part of the increase is because of stricter incident-reporting standards.

State statistics show that students and teachers in Burbank are three times as likely to be the victims of crime as their counterparts in Los Angeles, seeming to bolster demands for increased campus security by teachers who staged a one-day wildcat strike to draw attention to the issue.

The number of assaults against teachers and students in the Burbank Unified School District totaled 93 for the 1987-88 school year. One assault was reported for every 123 students in the 11,400-student district.

By comparison, the Los Angeles Unified School District reported 1,667 assaults for the 1987-88 school year, including two murders, or one assault for every 354 students. The Los Angeles district that year had about 590,000 students.

Burbank district officials said they believe the high incidence of assault comes in part from the stricter reporting standards the district uses.

“Every time two kids get in a fight, we report it, every incident of pushing and shoving,” said Timothy Crowner, assistant superintendent in charge of such reporting. “I don’t believe that crime is a greater problem at Burbank schools than other areas of the San Fernando Valley.”

But Supt. Arthur N. Pierce, who has promised teachers better classroom security, said that reporting methods are only part of the explanation. “The other reason is that assaults are increasing,” he said.

Despite its emergence as an increasingly dangerous place to teach and attend school, the Burbank district has been slow to respond to the increased violence, teachers say.

For example, the classrooms at Burbank’s two high schools are not equipped with intercoms and few have telephones. At Burroughs, teachers summon help by blowing coach’s whistles, issued to faculty members earlier this month for use in emergencies.

At Burbank High School, teachers have been instructed to designate a student as a “runner” to sprint for help in emergencies.

Teachers at the two schools say the primitive means of sounding alarms symbolize the inadequate response of the school district and the Burbank Board of Education to an increasing level of violence on Burbank campuses. Teachers say the district has been slow to recognize that such social ills as drug and alcohol abuse, teen-age pregnancy, school dropouts and gang violence are on the rise in this once-serene, middle-class suburb.

High school teachers said they repeatedly and unsuccessfully have asked for increased security personnel on campus--each school has but one campus security aide and one unarmed, part-time police officer--as well as installation of a modern communications system.

The final insult, teachers said, came earlier this month when the Board of Education decided not to expel a 15-year-old student who allegedly struck and threatened to kill a Burroughs High School teacher who was breaking up a hallway fight. In protest, the Burroughs faculty staged the strike, to alert the community to what they said was the board’s failure to support and protect teachers.

Pierce said that in response to teachers’ concerns, he will recommend this week that the school district hire an additional campus security aide for each of Burbank’s two high schools. The additional positions would return the campuses to the staffing levels of two years ago.

Jerry Quell, who is chairman of the faculty at Burroughs, said Pierce also promised him Friday that additional telephones would be installed to help speed communications between classrooms and administrative offices. Pierce said installing an up-to-date communications system at the two high schools would cost about $125,000.

Campus attacks and assaults on Burbank students have increased more than six-fold since 1984. The district reported 19 such incidents on 17 campuses during the 1984-1985 school year. By last year, the number of attacks had soared to 127, and numerous teachers cited instances of students being beaten up or intimidated by gang members. Gang graffiti, clothes and hand signals have become commonplace, even on elementary school campuses, teachers said.

The number of attacks on school employees reached a high of eight last year. Teachers report being shoved, punched, kicked and shouted at while in their classes, in hallways or during lunch hours on areas near campus.

“The potential for violent gang activity is real and is taken seriously by the school district,” an April, 1988, report to the board said. “Burbank is part of a metroplex of over 13 million people. The small-town atmosphere of the area belies this significant fact.”

As a result, a pervasive fear now hangs heavy on the campuses, teachers said. Secure in their classrooms and able to concentrate on their lectures until a few years ago, teachers said they now have to be concerned about their students’ safety as well.

Burbank High School history teacher Pete LiPera described the terror he felt one morning last spring when three gang members strode into his classroom and began pummeling one of his students.

LiPera teaches in an area of the campus known by the faculty as “the dungeon,” three classrooms in the basement of the school’s 80-year-old main building that lack a telephone, and LiPera knew that he was alone as he stepped into the middle of the fight.

His only means of summoning help was his classroom runner, whom he signaled to sprint the half-block to the school office as he pushed the intruders out of the room. They ran away before help arrived several minutes later.

Teachers said such incidents used to occur once a year but now happen about once a month.

“Those of us who have been here a long time are really watching a dramatic change,” said Nancy Leonard, an English teacher at Burbank High for the last 15 years.

Although the crime statistics, reported annually and made public by the state Department of Education, show that the incidence of violence in Burbank schools already exceeds that of schools in Los Angeles, teachers still believe that they are better off by comparison.

And although authorities have taken dozens of knives from students in recent years, only a few guns have been seized. Despite the increase in assaults, weapons have been used only four times in the last five years.

In addition, no incidents even approaching the seriousness of those in which a student stabbed and seriously wounded a Sylmar teacher earlier this year, or in which a La Crescenta teacher wrested a .357-caliber Magnum revolver away from a student who was threatening him with it, have occurred.

Quell, the Burroughs faculty chairman, said: “We get a lot of pat answers from administrators who say, ‘Gee, it isn’t that bad here. You ought to go to San Fernando or Compton.’ I chose to work in Burbank because I didn’t want to put up with that.”

Members of the Board of Education and the district’s top administrators said they have not ignored the problems cited by teachers.

But teachers said the incident that sparked the Oct. 20 strike is an example of how the board is failing to support teachers and district administrators in the battle against campus violence. In that case, the school principal, as well as the district superintendent and assistant superintendent, recommended that the 15-year-old student be expelled.

The student reportedly slugged Burroughs teacher George Rosales as Rosales and fellow teacher David Hermans were attempting to break up a hallway fist fight. The student accused of hitting Rosales and threatening to kill both Rosales and Hermans, was described by one administrator as a “normal, average kid” and not a gang member.

Even though the Board of Education decided not to expel the student, the deputy district attorney in charge of the Pasadena Juvenile Division has filed a felony charge of threatening a public official and two misdemeanor counts of battery against the youth.

School board member William Abbey objects to the teachers’ complaints that the board has failed to address security issues. He said the “reaction from some of the teachers and some of the people in the community is an overreaction . . . based on emotionalism and unsubstantiated, one-sided hearsay.”

Board members and administrators said the board has rejected an administration recommendation to expel a student only once in the last six years. The board has endorsed expulsion recommendations in about 35 cases during that period.

Board members and administrators also point to a long list of measures taken in recent years to counter campus violence. Student resource officers--unarmed police officers who counsel students as well as provide security assistance--were returned to the high school campuses last year.

Pierce said the district has locked doors and gates on the perimeter of the two sprawling campuses and has begun requiring visitors to obtain campus passes. A drug-counseling program was begun at Burbank High School this year.

Donna Troupe said that when she began teaching at Burbank High School 30 years ago the school had the latest in equipment and the most modern buildings, and teachers were among the best paid of any in the area. Now, district officials said, the facilities are in desperate need of $110 million in repairs and teachers’ pay is $4,000 to $7,000 less than that in nearby districts and graffiti is pervasive.