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April 11, 2008
Violence prevention hits homeBoardBuzz was interested and concerned by this story from CNN. As the anniversary of the violence at Virginia Tech approaches and other incidents of school violence come to light, school officials, parents, teachers, and community members are as concerned as ever about school safety and violence prevention.
What makes this story stand out, though, is that the parents of the student involved recognized some pretty scary behaviors in their son and acted to prevent the violence.
Elaine Sonnen found out about her son's plan during a conversation with him. She ordered him to write down the names of the eight students he wanted dead and then gave the list to his caseworker the very next day. Later, he added a teacher and his own mother and sister to the hit list.She took immediate action and had her son committed to an Idaho mental institution. Over the next 16 months, he received treatment at several mental health facilities throughout Idaho.
"There, I opened up. I felt better. I moved on with myself," Richard said.
"They felt at that point ... they had done everything they could do for him," added Elaine Sonnen. "He was doing great. He could make it on his own. They had no question."
During NSBA's Conference last month, experts addressed the issue of violence prevention in schools in a session and at a press conference. NSBA's Senior Staff Attorney, Lisa Soronen was also interviewed on the subject. You can watch her interview by clicking here. For more information about disaster preparedness, check out this article in ASBJ.
Posted April 11, 2008 1:46 PM | Health & Wellness | School Safety | Students
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Posted by: Laura Collins on April 11, 2008 3:48 PM
NEW SCHOOL SAFETY REPORT PAINTS GRIM PICTURE OF SAFETY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
A new report entitled “The State of School Safety in American Schools” speaks of sexual assault, violent cliques and violent parents as commonplace in suburban, urban and rural schools nationwide.
The report was developed by the SERAPH Research team of SERAPH.net a group composed of educators and crime researchers. The team used interviews with 1,520 educators, 925 law enforcement officials and numerous scientific studies to create a detailed assessment of problems facing American schools.
“In 2000,” states research team leader Dale Yeager, “The United States Human Rights Projects' - National Campaign to Fight for Children asked SERAPH to create a detailed report on school safety for select members of the U.S. Congress. Because of the misconceptions about school safety by the public and many legislators we felt that releasing this year’s report to the public would assist in educating people about the problem.”
The report is available online at http://www.seraph.net/documents/SchoolSafetyInAmerica.pdf
The report covers many areas not traditional discussed in school safety research such as: Young Children and Aggression, Educational Philosophies and Student Aggression, Health Issues and School Safety, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Piercing and Tattoos, Girl Aggression, Sexism and School Safety, Youth on Youth Sex Aggression
“The issue of school safety affects everyone in society. Juvenile crime, domestic violence, poverty are all tied to school safety issues. The report will provide factual information to the public so that they can understand the complexity of the problem and provide information to legislators so that they can assist schools in preventing and managing school safety issues.”
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