Introduction
Creating a safe school necessitates having in place numerous precautionary procedures for children's mental as well as emotional problems, and a complete approach to early recognition of all warning signs that may guide to aggression toward self or others.
Small Rural Schools
School violence in addition to its attendant causes have migrated to rural America. Administrators of rural schools no longer can stay behind oblivious to possible acts of violence or they may find themselves in a judicial quandary for their failure to act.
Failure to take action, to believe "it couldn't happen here," positions the district for possible disaster and possible lawsuits. School boards ought to have an official policy addressing violence. The policy should state the predictable reply when faced with an emergency caused by a violent act or the risk of a violent act.
Administrators of rural schools often fail to address the potential of violence because of the infrequency of such acts. This infrequency is a positive and negative reality--positive in the sense that acts of violence are not a daily occurrence or expectation, and negative in the sense that board members and administrators may be reluctant to tackle the issue.
Reports of acts of violence in rural schools are few by contrast with those in urban and suburban schools, so the danger for potential violence may be perceived as "not serious."
Interestingly, though, some rural regions are beginning to focus on the problem in professional development settings. The intermediate service agency in northern Wisconsin has planned a workshop on school violence this spring. One of the presenters on youth violence and gangs during the annual conference of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards in January represented Waupaca, a rural district of 2,500 students.
Recently The American School Board Journal asked readers to indicate......
