Crime Data Offers Hope for Schools : Education: A state survey shows fewer cases of drug-related incidents and weapons possession in three Westside school districts last year.

Parents of children who attend school in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Culver City may be able to breathe a little easier.

Drug use and weapons possession generally are on the decline in the Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Culver City school districts, according to a recent crime survey released by the state Department of Education.

In the Culver City Unified School District, weapons-possession incidents dropped nearly 60% in 1988-89 from the previous school year, according to the report. In 1988-89, 11 guns, knives and other weapons were found in the 4,500-student district, compared to 26 the year before and 22 in 1985-86.

Fifteen weapons were reported among the 9,300 students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, compared to 24 in 1987-88.

Beverly Hills, with a student population of 4,700, had seven weapons-possession incidents, two more than the previous year.

But in the Los Angeles Unified School District, reports of guns on or near campuses rose by 8% to 274 in 1988-89, and over the last four years by a whopping 271%, up from 75 in 1985-86. Reports of other weapons dipped 1% from last year, but have jumped by 122% over the last four years.

School officials say they are unsure why Los Angeles and the smaller districts are experiencing opposite trends in weapons incidents.

Drug use appears to be waning in schools statewide, officials said. Los Angeles campuses had a 20% decline in 1988-89 from the previous year. Beverly Hills schools reported four incidents in which drugs were involved, down from 15 the year before. The Culver City and Santa Monica districts each had about an 80% drop, to fewer than 10 cases.

“I wish I could tell you we did something specifically,” said Nardy Samuels, principal of Santa Monica High School, where drug use fell from 32 incidents to five. “I think it’s a trend nationwide, not just here.” Or, he said, “kids are either real slick in not getting caught, or they leave their drugs at home.”

The crime figures, ordered by the state Legislature in 1984, are reported to the state by individual school districts. The accuracy of the statistics has been questioned by some education and law enforcement officials, who point to discrepancies among schools in discipline and enforcement. Santa Monica High School reported an increase in assaults, from 60 in 1987-’88 to 81 the next year. But, Samuels said, that increase could have been due in part to the turnover of four administrators during that period. “Maybe the system of reporting was different,” said Samuels, who became principal in the 1988-89 school year. Reported assaults in Culver City fell 16%, to 77 cases in the 1988-89 year. Beverly Hills had 26 assaults, four more than the previous year. Assault is defined as everything from spontaneous shoving matches to premeditated attacks.

In compiling the figures for all the categories, the districts only count cases that lead to student suspensions.

“Duty cleaning up the yard or the cafeteria” or some other kind of punishment would not show up, said Nancy Wolf, director of special pupil services for the Beverly Hills district.

“Sometimes suspension is not the answer,” but talking to the students is, says Terry Pearson, director of pupil services for the Santa Monica-Malibu schools.

The state statistics may also be misleadingly low, Samuels said, because law-breaking students are not always caught. The high school reported to the state only four incidents of vandalism--which Samuels said was graffiti--but the school walls show otherwise.

“We have graffiti artists, mostly in the bathrooms, mostly the boys’. . . . But we don’t catch them,” he said.

Likewise, two thefts and no burglaries were reported at the school, but Samuels said in fact there had been more.

“Things happen very quickly, are not reported, identified, recognized. Kids try to (hide), especially when they know someone’s coming,” he said. And, he said, students don’t like to snitch on their friends.

Statistics seem to indicate that each of the three Westside school districts had a trademark crime in 1988-’89. Culver City reported 240 instances of vandalism, a 50% increase from the year before, involving 76 students and costing the district $22,333. Santa Monica-Malibu had eight cases of arson, seven of which were fires set in garbage cans at the high school, Samuels said.

The state survey lists 21 sex offenses on Beverly Hills campuses, but Wolf said that number was incorrect, blaming the discrepancy on a computer error. She said there were actually four cases: three obscene telephone calls or indecent exposures, and one instance in which a man approached a student sitting on the school lawn, touched her shoe, and asked her to get into his car.

Incidents of campus crime overall dropped one-third in the Santa Monica-Malibu district between 1988-89 and the prior year. It rose 3% in Culver City and 13% in Beverly Hills.

School crime in Los Angeles was down 16%, but statewide, it increased 5%.