SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Schools Establish Weapons Hot Line

Sparked by the growing mix of students and guns, the Capistrano Unified School District has established a toll-free hot line for students to report weapons brought to campus.

The hot line, which has been used by both students and parents since it started March 19, is the latest effort by public school officials trying to deal with the increasing number of weapons at school.

Jacqueline Price, the district’s director of community relations, said the hot line has received numerous calls. Some have been pranks and only four have been taken seriously, although those calls didn’t lead to confiscation of any weapons.

While Capistrano Unified has one of the lowest weapon incident rates of school districts in Orange County--five incidents in the last two years--school officials say they don’t want to wait until the problem gets out of hand.

“We’re not going to eliminate” weapons, said Tom Anthony, director of secondary schools for the district. “We just want to keep a step ahead.”

Price said all calls for the district’s 30 schools are handled by central office personnel. Each call is logged and routed to the appropriate school. Administrators then canvass the school for the student and the suspected weapon.

“Our schools only call law enforcement when there’s reasonable cause to do so,” Price said.

According to Anthony, all school administrators will soon receive training from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on how to safely take weapons from students.

As punishment, students who are found in possession of a weapon on school grounds are expelled as a part of the district’s “zero tolerance” policy.

A one-page bulletin telling parents about the new toll-free weapons hot line number was recently sent to district residents, Price said.