Primer on School Safety

Police, prosecutors and academics who have studied the subject say school campuses in Orange County are safe. Yet many parents aren’t so sure.

The killings of 14 students and a teacher in Littleton, Colo., in April focused nationwide attention on schools, teenagers and violence.

Littleton and earlier student shooting sprees in Oregon and Arkansas quickly raised the question, “Can it happen here?” At meetings such as the one last weekend in Anaheim, which brought together politicians, parents and school administrators, the answer was “yes.”

There are guns in Orange County, of course, and some find their way onto campus each year. State statistics show that in the 1995-96 school year, 63 guns turned up on campuses in Orange County, everywhere from elementary schools to high schools.

Fortunately, the numbers dropped in succeeding years, first to 35 and then to 30 in the 1997-98 school year, the most recent for which figures are available.

Some of the gun incidents are vandals using BB or pellet guns to shoot out school windows after hours. That needs to be stopped, but it falls far short of hunting down fellow students on campus.

Still, there are more serious incidents. Last June, a sixth-grader from another school brought a loaded handgun that he had stolen to an open house at Richard Dana Elementary School in the Capistrano Unified School District. School officials said the youngster pulled out the gun and threatened a Dana student with whom he had been quarreling. No shots were fired and the boy with the gun was expelled from the district.

The most shocking recent case, not included in the earlier statistics, involved an El Modena High School senior who was killed on his way home after school, off the Orange campus.

Despite the general freedom from guns on county campuses, 49% of parents surveyed at random in a Times Orange County telephone poll soon after the Littleton shootings said they thought guns were at least somewhat prevalent on campuses in the county.

That surprisingly high number may have been a reflection of the intense media coverage of the Colorado shootings and the aftermath. But Littleton also spawned rumors of threatened attacks at other campuses, including at least one in Orange County. The rumors turned out to be unfounded.

Even before the Littleton shootings, Orange County Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas convened meetings with school district officials on protecting teachers from student violence. Those sessions were attended by fewer than half a dozen people. But a meeting this month of school and law enforcement officials to discuss campus security matters drew more than 100 people.

Unfortunately, the session was closed to parents. In the future, it would be best to include them. Parents obviously are vitally concerned about the safety of the schools their children attend. They also may obtain information not known by teachers or administrators and can offer insight into the concerns of their children.

That was shown this month when a student at South Junior High in Anaheim, encouraged by his mother, told the assistant principal about two eighth-graders who had weapons, police said. Investigators reported finding two bombs, two stolen guns and ammunition at the students’ homes. The boys were taken into custody.

Rackauckas has promised to seek ideas from parents and others in the community in developing a comprehensive plan for responding to school emergencies. He said his office would form a committee to develop the plan.

The entire community has a stake in education and in the security of school campuses. Last weekend’s discussion at an Anaheim high school of potential school violence drew an impressive turnout of about 100 people. That demonstrates the interest in the subject. Such community involvement can help police and school officials spot problems early and develop solutions.