We do tragedy well. As expected, the December 11 shootings that wounded six youth, including four Mojave High students, drew attention to the issue of school violence. School officials went into full damage-control mode, fending off broadsides about insufficient campus safety measures and lax incident reporting.
We don’t do intervention well. We struggle with stopping schoolyard problems before they erupt. If reportschoolviolence.com is to be believed, then Valley campuses are more dangerous than we think. The site, started by “concerned parents whose children attend school in the Clark County School District” features anonymous posts of alleged incidents that have gone unreported.
Some recent excerpts:
December 10
• Boy bullied: “My son was distracted by a student, shoved to the ground by another student so they could rifle through his backpack and steal his cell phone. The next day he was physically threatened for reporting the incident and his lunch was thrown away by the offending student.”
• Racial tension sparks violence: “This white boy called this black guy the N-word and the black [guy] knocked him right in the mouth. Blood was everywhere.”
December 11
• Suspended for self-defense: “My child had been battered the evening before … On December 11, I drove my child to school with the police reports and gave a copy to the dean. I also informed him at this time that the boys had stated that they were going to jump my child at the bus stop after school. I just happened to be on my lunch break at the time that his bus was going to be coming … the same kids jump[ed] my child again. [Then] I received a phone call from the school stating that my child was being suspended for defending himself.”
December 12
• Student brings knife to campus.
• Boy is a perpetual victim: “While my son was walking from fourth to fifth [period], he was called a ‘dirty Jew’ and hit in the ear from behind. ... The next day, he went to the dean’s office to review surveillance tapes. The camera’s had been ‘cleaned.’ Three weeks ago or so, he was punched in the locker room in the groin. One year ago, he had his hair set on fire in the boys’ bathroom.”
December 13
• Boys sexually harass a girl, “grabbing her butt.”
• Wheelchair-bound student bullied. “Several students cornered him at lunchtime. They forced my son to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol. ... The leader of the group said, ‘We want to see what a drunk and high ‘tard looks like.’ I took my son straight to the hospital after hearing this, but he’s going to be alright in a couple of days.”