Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 31, 1994 TAG: 9403310288
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The superintendent of Roanoke's public schools has laid down the law - zero tolerance for behavior that threatens the safety of students - has made the rules clear, has publicized them and has asked parents to buy into them. If parents care about their children's well-being, they will.
No student should bring a lethal weapon to school. No student should feel compelled to do so in self-defense because some other student has one.
No one should imagine that such happenings are peculiar to city schools. They certainly are not. Still, it's to Wayne Harris' credit that he is attempting to stop his jurisdiction's arms race dead, before somebody in a school corridor ends up that way.
Anyone in possession of a gun or other lethal weapon will be suspended automatically, with a recommendation for expulsion. Explains Harris: "We want to make sure that our schools are absolutely safe - and we want it to be absolute."
Absolutely right.
Even more important are the school district's preventive efforts to keep problems from arising. Lissy K. Runyon, public-information officer for the city schools, outlined in a letter on this page Wednesday a range of violence-prevention and safety measures: rules against door-to-door fund-raising by elementary children; aides on elementary school buses; police school-resource officers to mediate conflicts, teach about the dangers of drugs and monitor safety; student teams to help resolve individual problems; supervised parking areas; recognition of good citizenship.
And now the "Standards and Expectations for Student Behavior" booklet, which states explicitly for all students and their parents what will not be tolerated in schools. What will not be tolerated are weapons brought with the intention of threatening or harming others, the sale or distribution of drugs, inflicting serious injury on someone. Any of these will get a kid kicked out. Forever.
The code of conduct covers lesser transgressions and punishments as well. Any one of the punishments is likely to sound harsher if your own child is caught breaking one of the rules, but expulsion most of all. Forever is a long time for youngsters, and signifies a lot of lost opportunity.
For these most serious offenses, though, the school administration is determined to respond in the most serious way, if only so that the message is clear and consistent. It is important for parents to familiarize themselves with the code of conduct, enforce it on the home front, and make sure their children understand the stakes.
In asking parents to pledge their support, the schools are asking for a renewal of a traditional partnership that has become frayed - a parent-teacher alliance that presents a united front. Students will behave, or face the consequences at school and at home.
Such ground rules, truly and uniformly enforced, would allow time for more learning in classrooms that are as safe as parents would like to imagine.
The community must realize, of course, that getting rid of someone who is a danger or disrupter in school does not get rid of the problem. That person will remain in the community, as much a threat as ever to society. Perhaps more so. There must be alternatives besides waiting until someone's antisocial behavior lands him or her in jail.
These troubled, troublesome youths must be dealt with somehow by society. But not by its children.
by CNB