IRVINE : Board Will Assess Its School Safety Effort

The Irvine Unified School District’s Board of Education will review its yearlong effort to improve school safety and reduce youth violence.

The discussion will give school officials and board members a chance to assess what steps the district has already taken and look at what officials should do next. The public can watch the presentation tonight at 7:30 on cable television Channel 3.

Youth violence has been a key issue in Irvine. A committee made up of city and school officials delivered a comprehensive report on the subject last spring.

The Safe Community Task Force made more than 50 recommendations for reducing youth violence. School officials have already begun implementing some suggestions, including:

* Hiring school safety officers for high schools and middle schools.

* Increasing the use of “conflict management” training to prevent physical confrontations among students. These nonviolent conflict resolution techniques rely in part on students who help other students work out their differences without fighting.

* Increasing the use of ethics curricula in schools.

Board member Margie Wakeham praised the district’s efforts for going beyond simple security measures and attempting to change the way students look at conflict and violence.

She praised the conflict management programs for helping students “look clearly at the issues (involved in a dispute) and find ways to resolve conflicts and (remain) friends.”

Ethics training such as the kind being taught to ninth-graders at Woodbridge High School is considered a model for other programs around the nation, Wakeham said.

“It’s not just about the importance of being honest,” she said. “It looks at things like tolerance and respecting other people’s rights.”

Wakeham said the district might consider placing intercoms or telephones into portable classrooms that currently don’t have them. Teachers have suggested the idea as a way of maintaining instant two-way communications with other school officials.