|
BY REQUEST... October 1998 |
Location
Contact
Description
Noting that day as one of the darkest in her life, Superintendent Kate Stetzner (who was principal of Margaret Leary School at the time of the shooting) has since made it her mission to create safe learning environments for children and to assist in developing ways to identify potentially violent children early on in their school years. Stetzner, who now advises and speaks on school safety issues at the state and national level, has met personally with the President, Attorney General, and other members of the Executive Cabinet for discussions on the issue. She also teaches continuing education courses on school violence at the University of Montana and Western Montana University. Clearly, from the darkest day of her life stemmed the driving commitment of her life. Her heart, however, still belongs to the Montana town she calls home. Much has changed in Butte since the day of the shooting. People there now know violence isn’t something that happens "someplace else." Following the shooting, each Butte school created a School Safety Team. The teams, comprised of a social worker, a probation officer, a DARE officer, the school janitor, the counselor, teachers, the principal, the truant officer, a parent, a clergyperson, a medical professional, and a mental health worker meet every two weeks. During the meetings they discuss logistics of maintaining a peaceful school, general school operation concerns, natural disaster preparedness, intervention strategies to red flag potentially violent children, security precautions, and appropriate family interventions for students from troubled homes. The purpose of the teams is to give schools the ability to reach out to troubled kids quickly an effectively. The members of the teams also work to train school personnel, parents, and others in the school community to identify the early warning signs of violent offenders, to intervene appropriately, and to develop prevention and response plans tailored to each school’s particular needs. Another measure the district took to ensure that students felt safe at school was to hire School Resource Officers to be present in the schools throughout the day. The Resource Officers were hired by the police department and placed in the schools to address and enforce the law. These officers have all the legal power of regular police officers and can arrest and follow through with juvenile offenses committed on the school grounds and off. Other efforts the district actively implements include a conflict resolution/peer mediation program, disaster response training, and a formal violence prevention curriculum. The conflict resolution/peer mediation program is coordinated by parent volunteers who received training from Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory professionals. Second Step (see page 53 for a description of the Second Step program), the violence prevention curriculum implemented in the district, is delivered via school counselors. The school janitor is responsible for conducting disaster response training. The janitor guides all students through earthquake, fire, and crisis response training. In addition to these efforts, Stetzner created a districtwide review team that examines student offenders who have been caught with a firearm at a school and makes recommendations for enforcing the district’s 365-day expulsion rule and alternative educational planning to the superintendent, who then makes recommendations to the district board of trustees. Families may request a review team hearing during the expulsion, similar to a parole board hearing, on a case-by-case basis. The community, too, continually shows its support for the violence prevention work being done in Butte. Annually, 3,000 families participate in Butte’s Walk Against Violence. Attended by such dignitaries as the Montana state Attorney General, the walk raises money for the upkeep and maintenance of the district’s 40-acre outdoor sports complex, built with the intent of offering kids safe activity alternatives during out-of-school hours. The community is also involved in a state grant that seeks to provide students with service skills. This effort pairs local service clubs with a specific grade level of students, and together they are assigned an outdoor area of school grounds (including the outdoor complex and the district’s nature park) to maintain and beautify. Observed Outcomes
Keys To Success
|
