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Publication Date: Friday, May 04, 2001

"If communities really were able to mobilize along common themes, they could do far more than they do now. We often cooperate with each other, but we don't necessarily maximize our resources." @dropname:Rich Fischer, superintendent, Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District

City, schools discuss safety

By Justin Scheck

At a meeting last Thursday city and school officials sat down to discuss school violence, and ways to prevent it.

The meeting, convened by Mayor Mario Ambra, gathered school and police officials as well as Monique Kane, director of the Community Health Awareness Council and Carrie Bondy of Suspension Bridges, a program that provides conflict resolution training as an alternative to suspension as a punishment for misbehavior.

Much of the discussion focused on how well school officials and the Mountain View Police Department have done to establish a partnership to combat violence, but attendees also discussed new programs and approaches to the problems of bullying and systemic verbal and physical abuse among schoolchildren.

Ambra said he sees violence, drugs and alcohol as major threats to young people, but he "can't believe that we have to put police in schools."

But, Ambra added, the police "need to do a drug sweep in (the schools)."

At the meeting, school, city and police officials agreed that the partnership between police and schools has had positive results for students, and has resulted in a feeling of safety and stability among administrators and school staff.

Mountain View School District Superintendent Trish Bubenik said she was pleased with the "ongoing development of this 'we're in this together' type of feeling" among schools and police.

"We often don't take time to recognize the strength of our partnership, so I thought that was a very positive part of the meeting," said Bubenik in a Tuesday interview.

Kane said that she hopes to continue to have productive dialogues with the schools, but feels that more needs to be done to support conflict resolution on an everyday basis.

"I thought it was a good dialogue, but nothing conclusive came out of it," Kane said of the meeting.

"If I ran the schools -- I brought this up, and I bring it up ad nauseum... every school in every class would have an ongoing curriculum to deal with conflict resolution," she said.

Kane said that after a series of violence scares at Mountain View High School and Graham Middle School in the wake of the March 5 shooting at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., she sent a letter to Mountain View school officials offering CHAC's services to implement a conflict resolution program.

Kane said that, while some principals have taken CHAC up on its offer, none of the superintendents of Mountain View's three school districts have implemented the program district-wide.

"That kind of thing really makes a difference, and I don't know why (the superintendents) don't do it," said Kane.

Mountain View Police Chief Mike Maehler said that recent studies show school violence to be declining nationwide, although there have been recent instances of high-profile outbreaks of violence.

Bondy, whose program is currently used in four high schools and middle schools in the East Bay's Castro Valley Unified School District, said she was impressed with the talk at the meeting.

"It was really nice for people to sit around and talk about solutions," said Bondy. She said that bullying, both physical and verbal, is a serious problem in all schools.

"You really need to attack the problem from every level. You need to be really proactive. There needs to be a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, and all the teachers and staff need to be on the same page with that... Sometimes verbal violence can be as bad as physical violence," she said.

Bubenik said "bullying is not necessarily an act in itself. It's often a signal that a kid has some real needs to be met." But she hesitated to use the term "zero tolerance" to describe her district's approach to dealing with bullying.

"'Zero tolerance' carries a serious connotation, so all I'm saying is it's dealt with very seriously, and it's not dismissed."

Bubenik said she liked an idea brought up by Rich Fischer, superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District.

Fischer spoke about creating a community-wide program that would include all of the school districts, and student input, in formulating a non-violence program.

"If communities really were able to mobilize along common themes, they could do far more than they do now," said Fischer. "We often cooperate with each other, but we don't necessarily maximize our resources."

Fischer said he agrees with Kane's emphasis on incorporating conflict resolution and anti-bullying tactics into the curriculum, but he worries about desensitizing kids with catch-phrases that lose their meaning.

"I don't think it's as simple as 'just say no to violence'... If we talked about bullying every single day, kids could become cynical and sarcastic," Fischer said.

Overall, he said, the schools need to make sure that they are constantly working to improve their programs against bullying, and doing all they can to prevent students from becoming isolated and anonymous.

"We all need to hold ourselves to higher standards in our community, in our schools, and in our lives. There's always room for improvement," he said.