Task force on school violence told of underreporting in Nevada

Brendan Riley

Friday, Oct. 8, 1999 | 9:32 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Some Nevada administrators worried about a bad image for their schools aren't sharing all details about student violence with police, a new state task force has been told.

Phil Gervasi, president of an association representing officers working in Las Vegas-area schools, said he knew of several cases that were either not reported immediately or never reported. One involved a student who shot an arrow at another student during a physical education class.

Other cases involved a fire set at a Las Vegas school and a shot fired on a school bus that missed students but put a hole in the bus, Gervasi said Thursday.

"Things are being covered up," Gervasi told the Commission on School Safety and Juvenile Violence. "It seems we're more interested in imaging today."

Inadequate reporting by administrators was also brought up by Debbie Cahill of the Nevada State Education Association, representing teachers throughout the state.

"It's gotten to the point that the NSEA has considered printing our own school incidents report," Cahill said.

Commission member Tommy Burns, a former Henderson police chief, said accurate reports are a problem among police agencies as well as schools, because of a concern about being labeled a high-crime area.

Commission member Pamela Hawkins, principal of Western High School in Las Vegas, added that questions about accurate data on school violence may be resolved by new reporting mandates passed by the 1999 Legislature.

Contacted after the meeting, Clark County School District spokeswoman Mary Stanley-Larsen said there is no attempt by schools in her district - Nevada's largest - to hide student violence.

Stanley-Larsen said she did not know about the bow-and-arrow incident or the fire, but the bus incident was reported. It was delayed because the driver thought the shot was an engine backfire, she said.

"The bottom line is we believe in safety of our students and that means working with our police agencies," she said.

State lawmakers created the commission and mandated improved reporting this year following school violence across the country.

That included the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colo., last April that left 15 people dead, the March 1998 deaths of five people at a middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., and the May 1998 killings of four people at a home and a high school in Springfield, Ore.

The 11-member Nevada commission, chaired by state Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, will work on a statewide emergency response plan, along with recommendations for programs to reduce violence, gang activity and kids' access to guns.