New Rogich Middle School program aims to prevent violence

By Jeff O'Brien

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

At Sig Rogich Middle School, a small group of teachers and parents are laying the foundation for what they hope will become an influential group that promotes conflict resolution and violence prevention — one that will ultimately be driven by students.

The school's first-ever meeting of Students Against Violence Everywhere, or SAVE, was held on Sept. 4 and provided an opportunity for parents and teachers to learn about the program and brainstorm ways to start the effort this year.

SAVE was founded 19 years ago after the death of a high school student in Charlotte, N.C. Seventeen-year-old Alex Orange, a standout football player at West Charlotte Senior High School, was shot and killed in 1989 while trying to break up a fight at an off-campus party.

Rogich Middle School becomes the 22nd school in the Clark County School District to establish a SAVE chapter, joining more than 1,600 branches nationwide.

Mack Megown, dean of students at Rogich, became familiar with the SAVE program during training this past summer. Feeling it would be a good program to implement, he introduced it to his fellow staff members.

Rogich Middle School's SAVE program will probably begin as an after-school club — one that doesn't focus solely on the straight-A students who are on the honor roll or student council.

"If the SAVE program only targeted your typical high-end, well-behaved students, it probably wouldn't achieve a lot," Megown said. "Those are pretty much the kids we never have problems with. We need to pair those kids up with the ones who have actually been harassed or bullied. I'd like to see where those relationships go."

At Rogich Middle School — which has about 1,800 students — incidents of bullying don't always involve pushing and shoving, said counselor Lori Stout.

"It can be as simple as a rude stare up and down, as if you don't fit in or aren't dressed 'good' enough," Stout said. "As adults, we need to really watch what we see when we walk by."

She also suggested that Rogich become stricter in its progressive discipline plan, with more parent conferences taking place right off the bat as opposed to just warnings for first-time bullies.

Left unchecked, schoolyard bullying can easily escalate to the next level where it erupts into violence, Stout said.

"I think it's a combination of things that cause it to get worse," she said. "It can be a lack of intervention, students not telling an adult, or kids not knowing proper conflict resolution skills."

Just a few days before the meeting, Stout said she had to sit down with a student who made an off-color racial remark in a classroom.

"He really didn't get why what he said was not right, so we talked about it," Stout said. "He wasn't really trying to be mean. He just didn't get it."

Internet bullying can also take place at social networking Web sites such as MySpace. Although such incidents typically occur outside of school walls, the second those problems are brought on campus, they're the school's responsibility.

"If students can't function up to their capacity because they're so upset about what they wrote on MySpace last night, then it affects our school," Stout said. "Cyber bullying is definitely an issue."

Traci Menga of Summerlin was encouraged by the potential of the SAVE program. Her 12-year-old daughter, Jessica, is a seventh-grader at Rogich.

"It actually empowers the students to police themselves, and I think that's really important nowadays," Menga said. "At this age, a lot of kids rarely want to hear what adults have to say."

The SAVE program at Rogich plans to meet each Thursday at 2:15 p.m. in the school's counseling office, and Megown said the next step is to recruit students.

"This whole program is going to be student-run," Megown said. "We're just advisers. We need to recruit the sixth-graders, because they're here for three years and they can build an understanding."

The club also plans to host SAVE-sponsored dances, after-school picnics and sell t-shirts and other merchandise to encourage involvement. Another possibility is to bring inspirational speakers to testify against youth violence.

"We need to get the ball rolling on this program," Megown said. "Things are going pretty well at the moment, but soon the honeymoon with the first days of school will be over. By the first of October, school feels like work with the kids and it becomes a grind. I'd like to see this up and running sooner rather than later."

For more information about SAVE at Rogich Middle School, call Lori Stout at 799-6040.

Jeff O’Brien can be reached at 990-8957 or [email protected].