Panel launches study of options to ensure safety on campuses

Friday, Oct. 8, 1999 | 11:27 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A commission created to head off school violence was told Thursday that colleges are not training potential schoolteachers how to manage classrooms to avoid disruptions.

"New teachers are like a deer in the headlights. They come in wanting to be a friend," Barbara Baxter, a Sparks teacher, said.

"We are not preparing our young people to come in as disciplinarians and manage these young people," said Baxter, a member of the Commission on School Safety and Juvenile Violence.

Others agreed at the first meeting of the commission created by the 1999 Legislature after the school shooting in Littleton, Colo.

Pamela Hawkins, principal of Western High School in Las Vegas, said the new teachers are not trained to run classes. Assemblywoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, a commission member and, said veteran teachers also need more training in the same area.

State Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, who was elected the commission's chairwoman, cited the 200 youth gangs with more than 7,000 members in Clark County as a source of problems.

"The youth gang problem is at an uncomfortable level" nationwide, she told the commission.

Her study of gangs found that 30 percent of gang members are female and "they can be just as violent," Wiener said.

The first duty of the commission will be to draft and adopt a plan to respond to emergencies involving school violence. That must be adopted by Jan. 1, 2000, and it must designate who will be primarily responsible for answering any outbreak on school grounds.

The plan must include an estimate of the amount of money necessary to finance the response, and it must outline the strategy for state officers to coordinate with local government officials in these incidents. Local school boards have until July 1, 2000, to adopt their own plans, which must comply with the state.

Michael Fitzgerald, coordinator for safe and drug-free schools for the state Department of Education, told the commission that Nevada has a law requiring compulsory attendance at school for students, even through they may be disruptive.

There must be cooperation between the schools and law enforcement, Fitzgerald said. And he cautioned the commission that one safety standard that may work in urban schools may not be proper for rural classrooms.

"There must be a clear, standard code of conduct," he said. "What is expected for student behavior ... students have to know the rules up front."

Cameras on all school buses, metal detectors at the schools and school uniforms are possibilities the commission considered.

The commission intends to hold its next meeting Nov. 9 in Washoe County, where it plans to invite students to tell them first-hand of the possible dangers on campus and to give some suggestions.