Getting Tough With School Troublemakers : Officials must act fast to ensure that schools are gun-free

Two killings at Los Angeles high schools in one month are two killings too many.

The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Michael Ensley at Reseda High School on Monday gives even greater urgency to the challenge of making schools safe. The Los Angeles school board must make it a top priority to get all guns and all dangerous troublemakers off every campus.

Mandatory expulsion is the current penalty for students who take a gun to school, including those youngsters who insist they need a weapon for protection. The board belatedly adopted that policy last month after the fatal shooting of Demetrius L. Rice in a classroom at Fairfax High School. Unfortunately, a majority of the board rejected that appropriate punishment nearly three years ago when a school safety task force made that and other recommendations.

School board member Julie Korenstein created that task force after a junior high school student stabbed his English teacher. That youngster, a disciplinary problem with a history of violence, had been allowed an “opportunity transfer” to get a fresh start at a new school. His crime prompted the task force to recommend greater scrutiny of such transfers. But the board majority, though well-intentioned, foolishly continued that transfer program with no major changes.

The student accused of killing his schoolmate at Reseda High was an opportunity transfer. The victim was too. Such transfers are requested because a youngster fears youth gangs, is doing poorly, hanging out with a bad crowd or getting into minor trouble. Those reasons are legitimate. Opportunity transfers should not be used, however, to simply shuttle violent troublemakers from one campus to another. Permanent expulsion must be their penalty.

The task force, made up of parents and educators, also recommended a special phone line for students to report anonymously that someone had a weapon on campus. Youngsters often know such things but are afraid to “snitch.” The district finally set up such a hot line after the Fairfax High shooting. Teachers and school administrators--and students--must do more to encourage youngsters to use it.

Another recommendation ignored by the board called for metal detectors. These hand-held devices have been used at athletic events and a few dances. But the district did not find the money to buy hundreds until after the Fairfax tragedy.

Supt. Sid Thompson has promised greater use of metal detectors to find hidden weapons. But while spot checks will discourage some youngsters, random searches may not deter hard-core toughs.

To get them, the Los Angeles Police Department should consider assigning young undercover officers to campuses to ferret out guns and gather other intelligence on those few students who may be truly dangerous to their schoolmates.

Police and prosecutors are part of a task force set up Monday by the school board to find better ways to reduce the number of children with guns on campuses. This new task force is expected to make recommendations within 30 days. This time the board must put first the safety of students who go to school to learn.

The safety recommendations could cost dearly at a time when the district is severely strapped. Those dollars must be squeezed out of public coffers and private donations.

Guns are increasingly common at schools. As the safety task force pointed out three years ago: “The potential for murder is real.” We have learned the hard way--twice--how prescient that warning was.