School Districts Search for Ways to Stem Rising Tide of Violence

The National School Safety Center in Thousand Oaks advises school districts across the country on how to deal with campus crime, but it has had almost no contact with Ventura County schools.

Until now.

Simi Valley Unified School District officials called the safety center recently because of concern over the rising tide of violence in surrounding districts.

“We’ve never met with them before,” Supt. Robert Purvis said. “But we’re trying to be as pro-active as we can on school safety, so we’re gathering as much information as we can from all sources.”

Purvis said the district has planned an April 19 meeting with parents, school officials, police and representatives of the safety center to discuss what additional security measures may be needed.

“I’d like to know what the NSSC thinks about the use of metal detectors,” he said, noting that school and police officials recently determined that they were not needed in Simi Valley schools.

Indeed, the center may soon be getting calls from other county districts that are wrestling more often with the same problems that have plagued large urban areas for years.

In Ventura, a 17-year-old Buena High student was arrested Feb. 24 on charges of stabbing a classmate in the chest in the school parking lot. Also last month, an Oxnard teen-ager was accused of firing a gun into the air at Ventura High after pointing it at a student.

And schools across the county have reported a sharp increase in the number of students caught with knives and guns at school. Oxnard Union High School District next month will become the first in the county to use metal detectors to search students for weapons.

“What we’re seeing is that problems that in the past were relegated to the inner cities are now coming to the suburban communities,” said Ronald Stephens, director of the school safety center.

Stephens said the center on occasion has advised the office of the Ventura County superintendent of schools in putting together its own school safety programs. The superintendent’s office helps schools decide what security measures would work best for them.

“They’re a good resource for us,” said Rich Morrison, coordinator of school safety for the superintendent’s office. “They have a national perspective, so that helps.”

Established in 1984, the safety center is a partnership of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Education and Pepperdine University. It produces and sells pamphlets, films and magazines on school crime, and provides speakers and training programs for teachers on gangs, drugs and student violence.

But most important, Stephens said, the center acts as a clearinghouse for schools that want to find out the latest crime-fighting methods being tried across the country.

Recently, the center has scaled back its operations because of cutbacks in federal funding. Its staff has shrunk from 30 to 9 and its annual operating budget has been slashed from $2 million to $900,000.

George Butterfield, the center’s assistant director, said its offices were moved from Encino to Thousand Oaks in September, 1991, to save on rent.

Despite its budget problems, the center--which charges between $500 and $5,000 for its consulting services--has no shortage of business.

Gang problems and violence are on the rise on urban and suburban campuses throughout the country, Butterfield said.

“There’s already gang activity in many communities here,” he said. “But some of the communities have been in big-time denial about gangs in their schools, like Thousand Oaks. Now they’re having to take another look at what’s going on.”

He noted that Thousand Oaks, often touted as one of the safest cities for its size in the country, experienced its first fatal drive-by shooting in 1991. A 20-year-old woman was caught in gunfire between rival gangs.

In the last 18 months, eight students have been expelled for carrying knives, and five for possession of guns in Thousand Oaks schools. Three of the students caught carrying guns had stolen the weapons and planned to sell them to gang members, school officials said.

Fueling the school violence in suburban areas like Ventura County are the availability of weapons and drugs, broken homes and racial tensions in communities being transformed by population shifts, Stephens said.

Stephens urged Ventura County school officials to take a number of measures to secure their campuses if they want to keep emerging gang problems and violence on campuses from growing worse.

For one, all schools should maintain accurate crime records to help them keep track of disruptive students and to pinpoint when and where incidents are occurring.

“It’s absolutely critical to have an accurate crime reporting system,” Stephens said. “It’s like keeping a checkbook. It’s there so that you always know where you stand.”

For years, California schools were mandated to put together annual crime reports and submit them to the state Department of Education for analysis. But the program was dropped in 1990 for lack of funding.

As a result, some Ventura County schools no longer keep crime reports or, if they do, they are often incomplete.

Stephens said schools should encourage more community involvement by inviting parents on campus to counsel and tutor students and to help establish before- and after-school recreation activities.

High schools are advised to work with local police departments to establish anti-gang programs. Most programs are now limited to elementary and junior high schools.

The Ventura Unified School District is hoping to hire a police counselor to work with students at its three high schools next fall. Hueneme and Channel Islands high schools in the Oxnard Union High School District each pay about $10,000 a year for police counselors.

In addition to working with law enforcement, Stephens said schools also should develop multicultural programs to raise student awareness about the history and customs of different ethnic groups.

The Oxnard Union High School District plans to include such a program in its regular curriculum next fall.

Tensions among white, Latino and black students run high throughout the 12,000-student district, which includes six campuses in Oxnard and Camarillo, according to school officials and students.

In February, 1991, about two dozen Latino and black students, some wielding pipes and chains, fought in an Oxnard High School auditorium during a lunch period, resulting in 18 suspensions, eight expulsions and one arrest for inciting a riot.

Supt. Bill Studt said he is confident that the multicultural program will help ease racial tensions.

“I think it helps if students have a better understanding of other people’s cultures and backgrounds,” he said. “You tend to be more understanding, patient and tolerant.”

Stephens and Butterfield stopped short, however, of endorsing Studt’s recent decision to use hand-held metal detectors to search students, saying such measures are extreme and in most cases unnecessary.

But Studt said the district has already taken a number of steps to curb problems. Despite its efforts, 37 students have been expelled in the last 18 months for carrying knives to school, and three for possession of guns.

“It’s easy for somebody on the outside” to say the schools do not need metal detectors, Studt said. “But we’ve made the decision. And we think it’s the right one.”