Conflict resolution: conflict is inevitable. So, when you think about keeping your schools safe, consider communication. (Focus: safety & violence prevention).

Conflict resolution: conflict is inevitable. So, when you think about keeping your schools safe, consider communication. (Focus: safety & violence prevention). Images of students fleeing deadly shooting sprees in 1998-99 in Colorado and Arkansas set a new tone in classrooms nationwide. Then there was the plot in 1999, to kill six faculty members in a small Kansas City Kansas City,two adjacent cities of the same name, one (1990 pop. 149,767), seat of Wyandotte co., NE Kansas (inc. 1859), the other (1990 pop. 435,146), Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, NW Mo. (inc. 1850). school. It was foiled by police. And in a small Michigan community, more than 150 parents volunteered to monitor a school after a racially motivated bomb threat. Author, educator and developmental psychologist Elizabeth A. Barton points out these examples in her new book Leadership Strategies for Safe Schools. As more violent incidents occur in schools, the fear that schools are not the safe havens Safe Havens is a comic strip drawn by cartoonist Bill Holbrook and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. Started in 1988, the strip is currently published in more than 50 newspapers. they once were rises. To counteract such fear and real threats, Barton says, school administrators face a growing need to develop comprehensive school safety plans. "Conflict is inevitable," says Barton, who is also associate director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University Wayne State University,at Detroit, Mich.; state supported; coeducational; established 1956 as a successor to Wayne Univ. (formed 1934 by a merger of five city colleges). in Michigan and teaches psychology and education courses at Wayne State Wayne State may refer to the following public institutions: Wayne State College – Wayne, Nebraska Wayne State University – Detroit, Michigan and University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. . "I think that school violence will always be a part of the school community, but I think the means by which school violence plays out will change. There will be fewer massive tragedies and gun violence. "The deadly means to resolve the conflicts can be diminished. I truly believe prevention efforts and social training are really critical." Barton proposes a proactive, student-centered program to deflate (file format, compression) deflate - A compression standard derived from LZ77; it is reportedly used in zip, gzip, PKZIP, and png, among others.Unlike LZW, deflate compression does not use patented compression algorithms. violent tendencies, including improving student attitudes toward conflict resolution, using peer mediation and creating school safety teams. But a new first-of-its-kind national report card will reveal what one million Americans know and don't know Don't know (DK, DKed)"Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. about their school district's safety program. The results of the "School Safety Report Card," which has been organized by International Horizons Unlimited, an educational resources and consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a feeconsulting companybusiness firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a , will be released this spring and sent to individual districts with facts of what local residents think of their districts' safety programs. Such awakening to the problem is the first step in fighting it, experts say. "The results will vary," says Saul B. Wilen, known as the "father" of the report card and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of International Horizons Unlimited. "If everyone in a district says everything is hunky hun��ky?1?n. pl. hun��kies Offensive SlangUsed as a disparaging term for a person, especially a laborer, from east-central Europe. dory, then they're doing real well. If administrators in another district say everything is fine, but everyone else in that district says it's not, then they should take another look" at the program and make changes, he says. The report card, which is accessible to anyone online at www. schoolsafetyreportcard.com, is important for all members of the community, Wilen says. The company pinpointed 22 stakeholder stakeholdern. a person having in his/her possession (holding) money or property in which he/she has no interest, right or title, awaiting the outcome of a dispute between two or more claimants to the money or property. groups, including parents, law enforcement officers, business people and senior citizens whose property values are affected by school violence. The questions cover such issues as guards, metal detectors, crisis management teams and accountability. And the questions will force stakeholders StakeholdersAll parties that have an interest, financial or otherwise, in a firm-stockholders, creditors, bondholders, employees, customers, management, the community, and the government. to start questioning administrators and board members about safety at local schools, Wilen says. "If only 10 percent of the stakeholders seriously become aware and understand how important this is ... more than 50 percent of the schools and districts will show change," Wilen says about the results. "And I think we'll see progressive changes occurring in a year and then more ... over the next 10 years." Wilen says the idea for a report card came about two years ago after his company finished a presentation to Texas educators and learned many school administrators "did not have a handle on school safety and school violence." "I sit on all sorts of task-force committees. Prevention is not in the vocabulary," Wilen says. "Education is not in the vocabulary. If you don't prevent, and you have to deal with a crisis, it will cost you many more dollars than if you had prevented it." BE PROACTIVE Since 1990, Barton notes in her book that school leaders have taken more of a "reactive approach" to school safety rather than "proactive" by installing metal detectors and surveillance equipment For example, some schools on Long Island, N.Y., are looking into cutting-edge technology from A+ Technology Solutions. New digital surveillance systems allow school principals to view school buildings or classrooms from their homes via the Internet, according to Ed Milliken, a former schools superintendent and now owner of a consulting business. And StudentTrac is a new student information system available on handheld PCs that can keep track of where students should be at a particular time during school. It also includes pupil photos, home phone numbers, and parental data with work contacts, Milliken says. "As more schools become aware of it, with security and protection being such a high priority now, it will become more prevalent," Milliken says. But Barton stresses more education. The Conflict Resolution Education Network of the National Institute for Dispute Resolution estimated in 1996 that 10 percent of public schools had implemented conflict resolution programs. Under such programs, students learn violence prevention techniques and general safety procedures through curriculum integration and peer mediation training. Specifically, students will learn such life skills as communication, cooperation and anger management. Two such programs with encouraging results are Second Step and Steps to Respect by not-for-profit Committee for Children, according to Karin Frey, director of research and education at Committee for Children. The committee, which researches and develops internationally acclaimed research-based curricula to prevent bullying, child abuse and youth violence, says the programs are used in roughly 15,000 schools in North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. and help reduce physical aggression and verbal abuse verbal abusePsychology A form of emotional abuse consisting of the use of abusive and demeaning language with a spouse, child, or elder, often by a caregiver or other person in a position of power. See Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Spousal abuse. among children and increase positive social behavior In biology, psychology and sociology social behavior is behavior directed towards, or taking place between, members of the same species. Behavior such as predation which involves members of different species is not social. . For example, a middle school in Springfield, Ore., the same town where a school shooting See also: School shooting is a term popularized in American and Canadian media to describe gun violence at educational institutions, especially the mass murder or spree killing of people connected with an occurred in 1999, implemented Second Step after the incident and saw a decrease over two years from 15 weapon offenses on school grounds to just one, Frey says. Second Step teaches empathy, impulse control impulse controlPsychology The degree to which a person can control the desire for immediate gratification or other; IC may be the single most important indicator of a person's future adaptation in terms of number of friends, school performance and future and anger management, and it provides discussions, videos, modeling new skills and role-playing. "We also have data showing that kids are less likely to behave aggressively in the context of a conflict and less likely to require adult intervention in conflicts," Frey says. SOCIALLY DIVERSE Frey notes that along with violence prevention, the programs help to create socially open-minded people. "We live in a society that is increasingly diverse, and people in the workplace are increasingly working with people from other countries," Frey says. Possessing "typical" social skills that do not account for different beliefs or thoughts "just doesn't cut it anymore," she says. And she adds that children undergoing such programs feel more connected to the school and do better academically, Frey says. "If kids are operating in classrooms where there's a lot of aggressive behavior, they are not learning," she says. "Every child is affected ... because even if they are not targeted for bullying, there becomes a climate of fear and they start to think, `Who's next? Maybe it's me?'" Barton also points out the importance of developing school safety teams, which are groups of people empowered by the state or city government or school leaders to guide and respond to safety issues and develop a school safety plan. The plan should cover environment issues, such as access control and surveillance; student education; school policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental ; as well as school-community partnerships. Barton recommends a district-wide program but individualized in��di��vid��u��al��ize?tr.v. in��di��vid��u��al��ized, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��ing, in��di��vid��u��al��iz��es1. To give individuality to.2. To consider or treat individually; particularize.3. for each school because one school might use peer mediation and another may not. "The district needs to have supportive policies and procedures so it can provide infrastructure and a continuity of policies," she says. One of the great challenges of such safety programs is to fit them into busy school schedules, Barton admits. But she says teachers can infuse in��fusev.1. To steep or soak without boiling in order to extract soluble elements or active principles.2. To introduce a solution into the body through a vein for therapeutic purposes. violence prevention sessions in regular classroom work. For example, language arts language artspl.n.The subjects, including reading, spelling, and composition, aimed at developing reading and writing skills, usually taught in elementary and secondary school. students can read newspapers and find destructive methods of conflict resolution in the stories and then have them think of alternate solutions and how that would impact future stories. History students can discuss how different presidents dealt with conflict. Or schools can hire outside consultants to spend up to two hours a day during or afterschool af��ter��school?adj. often after-school1. Taking place immediately following school classes: afterschool activities.2. for roughly 15 weeks conducting programs, Barton says. Outside programs can cost up to $10,000, but schools can find grants, get business support or volunteers to help alleviate expenses, she says. On top of scarce time, teachers haven't been educated themselves on the topic, Barton notes. "The problem is that there's an expectation for teachers to teach social skills ... but they really haven't been provided with enough education," Barton says. Barton says if standardized tests included questions on social skills, it would force teachers to teach more about such skills. "I have thought of pushing that idea," Barton says. "You can infuse these type of questions on reading tests and social studies questions." PROGRAM PROMOTES PEACE IN SCHOOLS It all comes down to respect, While various violence prevention programs focus on problem-solving and assertiveness training assertiveness trainingPsychiatry A procedure in which subjects are taught appropriate interpersonal responses involving frank, honest, and direct expression of their feelings, both positive and negative for students, Peacemakers This article is about the pacifist organization. For other meanings, see Peacemaker (disambiguation). Peacemakers was an American pacifist organization. is a little different with a lot of positive results. Peacemakers, which developed in the early 1990s, is a 17-lesson curriculum for grades four through eight, It teaches students psycho-social skills to help them manage emotions and conflicts. And by use of an interactive CD-ROM CD-ROM:see compact disc. CD-ROMin full compact disc read-only memoryType of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). program, it also helps youths learn to respect, as it turns peer pressure into peace-making gestures that make violence appear "uncool," says Jeremy P. Shapiro, a child clinical psychologist who is also the creator and director of Peacemakers. "Why does it seem to work better [than other programs]? It's not just because it has an anger management component, it also has a CD-ROM that pays explicit attention to values," Shapiro says. "The program is a combination of high-tech and old fashioned n. 1. A cocktail consisting of whiskey, bitters, and sugar, garnished with with fruit slices and often a cherry.Noun 1. old fashioned - a cocktail made of whiskey and bitters and sugar with fruit slices ways to change [some] kids' [thinking.] The values are based on the golden rule--the main idea that appears in all major religions.... `Treat other people the way you want others to treat you.' That alone is a great violence prevention technique." A recent study involving 2,000 students in Cleveland Municipal Schools found that Peacemakers resulted in a 41 percent reduction in aggression-related disciplinary incidents and a 67 percent decrease in suspensions for violence, such as fights. The program is used in about 10 school districts, including in Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, California, and Canada. "There is a lot less physical fighting and interpersonal meanness and putdowns--that unhappy stuff that happens all the time in most schools," Shapiro adds. Shapiro says the program works in a number of ways. He goes to school sites and trains teachers, staff members and even janitors, and then teachers train the students in conflict-related psycho-social skills, how to resolve conflicts without violence, and how to deal with bullies. The CD-ROM is an engaging activity that involves an alien, which is the teacher, showing real-life scenarios in school hallways and classrooms, such as someone laughing at someone's shirt or someone not being invited to a party. The program gives students ideas of how conflicts fester fester/fes��ter/ (fes��ter) to suppurate superficially. fes��terv.1. To ulcerate.2. To form pus; putrefy.n.An ulcer. and how they could avoid them. Students need to learn to ask questions, Shapiro says. For example, if one girl is going out with a boy and another girl tells that girl, "I'm going to see your boyfriend later." The girl could, instead of lashing out and fighting, ask, "Why?" And the girl might say, "We're getting together for a science project." "A lot of research shows that they could jump to real angry conclusions," Shapiro says, "without enough information." Angela Pascopella, apascopella@ edmecliagroup.com, is associate features editor.