Communities and schools should take a preventive approach to school violence rather than focus solely on punishing students who have behavior problems, experts said yesterday at a summit on school violence.
Students are looking for structure, high academic expectations, and teachers who understand and can communicate with them, said Ivan J. Juzang, a consultant who gave the keynote address at the daylong meeting at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Providing those basics will make schools safer, he said.
The summit was organized by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings and State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick after several high-profile incidents of violence in schools this year, including the beating of a Baltimore teacher that became nationwide news after it was recorded on a student's cell phone and posted on the Internet.
FOR THE RECORD - In an article on school violence in yesterday's Maryland section, the remarks attributed to Frank Clark of Howard County should have been attributed to Steward H. Frazier of Howard County.
THE SUN REGRETS THE ERROR
The summit was called to find solutions to the problems of school violence, but the conversation among participants and speakers focused more broadly on the need to intervene in the lives of troubled children as early as elementary school. The participants included legislators, teachers, school board members, community leaders, parents and students from across the state.
They emphasized the role of those outside of schools - churches, mentors, parents and police - in helping to provide support that will steer students, particularly those from inner-city and poor neighborhoods, to the right path.
Cummings said he will convene an action group that would take the ideas generated in small groups yesterday afternoon and come up with suggestions for school districts across the state.
In addition, Grasmick and Cummings are planning a fall conference for students to discuss the issue of school violence.
Two possible actions
Grasmick said she envisions two actions that the state can take in the next year to try to increase safety.
The State Department of Education, she said, can develop standard definitions for misbehavior types of offenses While there are widely accepted standards in all schools for the most serious infractions, there are differing definitions for many other offenses such as insubordination. Because there is such wide variation, students are being punished in different ways, depending on where they attend school.
"There should be a standard and a sense of fairness," she said. Also, she said, colleges and universities need to train teachers better in techniques for defusing confrontations with belligerent students.
