L.A. Schools Win Grant to Fight Violence : Aid: Clinton announces program to help students deal with anger, stress. Four California districts will share $9 million.

Trying to keep violence from marring the new school year, President Clinton on Saturday announced $106 million in grants to local school systems--including those in Los Angeles and Riverside--for programs that would help students deal with stress and anger.

Two other California school districts--in San Luis Obispo and San Francisco--were among those in 54 communities selected for federal aid. Together, the California systems will receive about $9 million.

Federal education officials said the $2.8 million for the Los Angeles Unified School District is earmarked for the Belmont cluster of a high school and feeder schools in a densely populated, economically depressed area. The officials said that within the cluster, 37,000 students attend 34 schools and children’s centers, which also will benefit from the federal funds.

The money is to be used for social services and community police work, the officials said. It will support mental health counseling for children as young as 4, training for children in how to resolve conflicts without coming to blows, improvements in school security and an expansion of programs such as the police athletic league.

L.A. Unified officials could not be reached for comment Saturday. Clinton announced the grants in his weekly radio address. He said school shootings in the last two years make it plain that the underlying causes of youth violence must be better understood, and that a range of responses is needed.

The president said the grants are meant to help schools “identify troubled young people, prevent them from acting violently and respond when violence does occur.”

Statistics suggest that school violence is declining. A study released this summer found that the number of high school students who said they got into a fight at school fell by 9% between 1991 and 1997, and the proportion who carried a gun dropped by 25%.

But several mass shootings have focused public attention on the problem, especially the April massacre in Littleton, Colo., where two high school students murdered 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The $2.7 million in grants to the Riverside district will be used to establish “wellness centers” at each of five schools, providing services ranging from parental training for young mothers to counseling for family members who have been victims of or witnesses to violence. The centers will stay open until 7 p.m. to accommodate after-school activities; police officers will be part of the staff.

Clinton used his speech to take a dig at the Republican-led Congress for failing to reach agreement so far on several gun control measures the administration has sought, including a requirement for child safety locks on guns, a ban on the importation of large ammunition magazines and mandatory background checks on all buyers of firearms at gun shows, just as are required at gun stores.

“It shouldn’t take another tragedy to make this a priority,” he said. “It’s time for Congress to put politics aside and send me a bill that puts our children’s safety first.”

In the GOP response, Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts said that “simply passing more gun control laws isn’t the answer.”

Watts added: “I have repeatedly asked the Clinton administration to enforce gun laws already on the books, yet prosecution by the Justice Department remains dangerously lax.”