Schools at Risk : Campuses in Crime-Prone Areas Frequently Involve Students in Safety Exercises to Guard Against the Violence

It’s the first day of school, and the teacher is explaining what to do in case of fire, earthquake . . . or drive-by shooting.

She goes over the basics with the class: Go to a protected spot, as far from the fence as possible, behind a wall if you can. Get down, cover your head. Then the class moves outside to practice what school safety experts and some teachers call drive-by shooting, or DBS, drills.

Schools in high-risk areas frequently practice what to do in case of a drive-by shooting, said Yvonne Chan, principal at Vaughn Street Elementary School in Pacoima. She received a $5,000 grant in 1990 from the state Department of Education, which prompted parents to build an wall around the school’s lunch area to shield children from drive-by exposure.

“We would have had plenty of drive-by shootings without that,” she said.

Many high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District use a metal detection wand at dances and athletic events to look for such weapons as knives and guns. Teachers at John Burroughs High School in Burbank wear cellular pendants or carry special key chains to alert the school office when a campus situation requires backup. Classrooms that border the street in some schools have blacked-out windows to help prevent drive-by shootings.

According to Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, more than 3 million incidents of crime are reported in American schools each year. In the L.A. district, 351 assaults with a deadly weapon took place on campuses during a six-month period in 1991, according to the district’s crime report summary. In the same period, 265 students were reported to have brought knives, and 85 guns, to school.

“The big problems in schools used to be bullies,” Stephens said, “but now the issues are weapons, drugs and gangs. Kids are more willing to take the risk of carrying a weapon on campus--for protection to school and for protection at school.”

The National School Safety Center, a partnership of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Education and Pepperdine University, provides information, field services, and legal and legislative assistance on efforts to rid schools of crime, violence and drugs. The center publishes a quarterly journal on school safety and provides on-site training and technical assistance programs to schools nationwide.

The problems in the San Fernando Valley and its neighboring suburbs are growing, according to Stephens.

“We better not kid ourselves about the potential for crime and violence in the San Fernando Valley. Many of our schools are surrounded by a 360-degree perimeter of crime and violence.”

Buren R. Simmons, supervisor of the the L.A. school district’s Youth Relations/Crime Prevention Program, agrees.

“Three years ago, some Valley schools found it difficult to admit there was a gang problem in their community,” he said. “But it’s no different from any place in the city. There are a greater number of weapons on the street available to young people, and as a result there are problems in the schools.”

The problems are intensified when school resumes in the fall because the city’s 150,000 gang members will have spent the summer looking for new recruits.

“We’re recruiting new teachers, some youngsters are recruiting new gang members,” Simmons said.

In the face of such staggering statistics, some local schools have developed innovative strategies for promoting school safety and making the campus a place where students can comfortably learn.

“There’s no magic bullet on this,” said Tim Buchanan, principal at John Burroughs High. “What you have to do is work on a whole bunch of fronts at once to develop a school climate that works.”

Buchanan said his No. 1 priority for faculty and staff is to get to know the students well and to commit themselves to closely supervising the students.

“Some parents have one teen-ager at home they can’t control,” he said. “I have 1,700 teen-agers to oversee. They have to be closely supervised.”

Many of the students at John Burroughs High, according to Buchanan, are either members of gangs or are closely associated with them. So the problems, he said, are complex.

But Buchanan gives his phone number to anyone who wants it: students, parents, faculty and the community. He said he tells the students that he’ll open up the school over the weekend to get a forgotten textbook if necessary. He helps get jobs for students who have been involved in gangs--many are working in service areas at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank--because “it’s amazing what a good job can do to transform a teen-ager at risk.”

Buchanan has organized a campus group called Compassionate Burroughs Communicators, which helps orient and befriend the 350 students who are part of the English as a Second Language program at the school. A year ago, Buchanan closed the campus at lunch to all ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students--only seniors with parental permission can leave the campus at midday--and bought several barbecues so the cafeteria staff could make fresh burgers daily. The school also sends out for pizza every day.

With a $25,000 budget, funded by community organizations, the school has contracted for a program called ACE, or Acquiring Communities for Excellence, run by Burbank-based consultants Kim Strutt and Jim Hullihan. The program invites at-risk students to participate in training and weekend retreats at which they learn leadership skills and techniques for effective community involvement, Buchanan said.

In May, ACE participants took two weekends to paint the entire front of the school and two bungalows, using paint and equipment donated by the community.

“Ever since the kids painted the school, we haven’t had any more graffiti,” Buchanan said.

Together, these programs and the faculty’s approach to preventing problems work, Buchanan said. Weapons on campus are rare, and only nine students dropped out of the school last year--a 1% drop-out rate, contrasted with national rates that are typically 18% to 19%, he said.

At Coldwater Canyon Avenue Elementary School in North Hollywood, 1,200 students attend the school year-round. But the number of annual student suspensions has dropped from 95 five years ago to only 14 last year, Principal Jill Fager said.

The school has put several programs into place to promote school safety. For the past three years, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders have been trained to work the playground in pairs, dressed in red Conflict Busters T-shirts. The students learn conflict resolution techniques and ask fellow students who are upset or arguing if they can help, she said. If students refuse assistance, they must go to the school office.

“Most of the fights are about simple things, like two kids who don’t agree if they’re out at first base,” Fager said. “But the children are trained to spot problems in the making--and they do.” The program was originally designed for high school students but was adapted three years ago for the elementary school level at Fager’s request.

A year ago, Jim Morris, assistant vice principal, started a cafe-style lunch program designed to provide a soothing atmosphere for the students. A boom box plays classical music and lunch tables are decorated with plastic flowers in simple vases. A “Coldwater Cafe” sign painted by teacher Barbara Smart decorates the eating area.

“The children are much more quiet at lunch--there are fewer problems--and when they come back to the classroom they seem ready to work,” Fager said.

While Coldwater Canyon Avenue Elementary hasn’t had a problem with drugs or weapons on campus, Fager said she knows that the neighborhood junior high and high schools have gangs and graffiti.

“We get the children when they’re younger and we’re trying to prevent the problems later on,” she said. The school keeps its gates locked throughout the school day, and any visitors must enter through the main office.

The Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles work closely with local law enforcement authorities to ensure that their students get the information and advice they need to stay safe--and drug free, said Sandra Randall, elementary supervisor. While Randall said it is “quite rare” for a child to bring a weapon to any of the Valley’s 45 Catholic elementary schools, the law enforcement prevention programs, such as DARE and Project SMART, are important prevention tools for these schools.

Randall also said the Catholic high schools maintain closed campuses (students cannot leave for lunch), which is a recommendation of the National School Safety Center.

Stephens, of the National School Safety Center, suggests that every campus develop a detailed safe-school plan that includes blueprints for drug prevention, student leadership, parent participation, crime prevention through smart architectural design, community service and outreach, in-service training and crisis management.

He also argues for mandatory national crime reporting--there is none required for grades kindergarten through 12--and for education of the public on the extent of safety problems in the schools.

“When people understand the scope of a problem they are much more interested in solving it,” Stephens said.

Where to Go

Information: To find out about more school safety issues, contact the National School Safety Center, 4165 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Suite 290, Westlake Village 91362, or call (805) 373-9977.