THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9408050592
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
When discipline problems loom at Warwick High School in Newport News, teachers wave laminated yellow or red cards out their classroom doors to alert hallway security guards.
When trouble brews at Maury High School in Norfolk, teachers insert special keys into classroom switchboards to set off alarms in the principal's office.
At Churchland High School in Portsmouth, 11 newly installed video cameras record students' movements.
These are the stark images of today's schools.
As the rate and seriousness of behavior problems escalate in schools locally and nationwide, teachers and administrators find themselves spending more and more time policing - and more and more money outfitting their buildings with expensive security measures.
``It's coming,'' said Nathan T. Hardee, principal of Deep Creek High School in Chesapeake. ``We just got walkie-talkies this year.
``I always said I'd be the last holdout; I'd never have them. Now I don't know how we ever operated without them.''
Hardee and other Hampton Roads school officials gathered at a conference Thursday at Menchville High School in Newport News to swap ideas, applaud successes and lament failures in efforts to boost school safety.
Most praised recent developments, such as a move last year by area superintendents to band together into the Regional Superintendents' Safe School Task Force.
The task force, which seeks tougher state laws to help clean up schools, already has helped win one battle. State legislators earlier this year ordered state courts to report to school officials the names of youths convicted of violent crimes, burglary, arson, weapons offenses, or drug-related charges. The new law took effect last month.
School officials also took heart at success stories offered by their colleagues.
An assistant principal at Warwick High came up with the red and yellow card idea. When security guards see a yellow card waving, they come to the classroom and escort problem kids to the office. If a red card is waved, the guards radio the office for immediate help from all assistant principals and Principal Michael Evans.
``Eventually, the students caught on to it,'' Evans said. ``They don't go off much, because they know they'll have all of us at the door.''
A peer mediation program at Maury High, where students help other students resolve conflicts, has helped reduce the occasions when teachers need to use their emergency keys.
The good news was tempered, however, by frustration about how far some schools still must go to be secure.
Principals commiserated particularly about scarce resources for equipment and staff they need to keep school violence at bay.
When one high school principal mentioned that he had three security assistants, two student deans and four hallway ``walkers'' to monitor student activities, DeWayne Jeter, principal of Portsmouth's I.C. Norcom High School, sighed.
``I'd have no problems, if I had that many people,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
SOME METHODS
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
VIOLENCE IN THE SCHOOLS
In a January report released by the National School Boards
Association, more than four out of five school districts surveyed
nationwide said violence had increased over the previous five
years:
Increased significantly 35 percent
Increased somewhat 47 percent
Decreased somewhat 3 percent
Decreased significantly 1 percent
No change 12 percent
No answer 1 percent
Source: National School Boards Association/National Affiliate
Program
by CNB