Lessons From Columbine

How does the Columbine High School tragedy resonate in Ventura County?

It has provided a new soapbox for those who believe that guns are too available, or parents are too preoccupied, or movies are too violent, or schools need more counselors, or music is too loud, or the younger generation is going to hell in a handbasket.

It also apparently has given some local students the idea that making bomb threats--or bombs--is a good way to get attention.

Several Ventura County schools scrambled last week to handle threats that, before Columbine, might have been dismissed as idle talk. Balboa Middle School suspended two girls who allegedly threatened classmates. Balboa and Moorpark and Buena high schools were evacuated after bogus bomb threats. Other false alarms hit Fillmore and Oxnard high schools and Redwood Intermediate School.

More seriously, a Hueneme High School student was arrested after police found nearly a dozen pipe bombs at his home and a Newbury Park High School student was arrested after posting a supposed “hit list” on the Internet--a stupid joke, he told the FBI agents who raided his home at 3 a.m. Police are cracking down hard on such cases, and rightly so.

In these days of heightened sensitivity, police and school officials have little choice but to take all such threats seriously. In time, things will return to something resembling normal. But we hope some lessons will linger.

* Parents should heed the macabre hint of Columbine and show greater interest in how their kids are faring at school. Does a child dread Monday mornings? Does his or her new friend seem to bring out the worst? Is a casual interest turning into an obsession? It is often a challenge to keep communication open yet there is no substitute for time spent talking and--more importantly--listening.

* Students should recognize that they have tremendous power to make life for themselves and their classmates better, or worse. Speak up when a bully starts to pick on someone weaker. Get to know the lonely kid whose tough or withdrawn behavior at school may mask an even more miserable life at home.

* School officials should pay closer heed to the messages disguised as antisocial behavior. No lesson is more important than making sure their students know that they are not alone, that help is available, that they are an important part of a community that cares about them.

In an era of isolation, human connections are the best antidote to tragedies like Columbine. Taking small, individual steps to strengthen our families and communities is an appropriate memorial to the 15 who died.