wfn.org | Violence a community problem, not just a school problem

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

April 22, 1999 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-21-71B{221}

NOTE:  This may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #220.

By United Methodist News Service

Student shootings are not just problems for schools but for the entire
community, says the director of the Center for the Prevention of School
Violence in North Carolina.  

Schools must be taken out of the center of the circle, Pamela L. Riley told
United Methodist News Service in a telephone interview. "Schools need to
join hands with faith communities, law enforcement officials, juvenile
justice professionals and civic organizations, and then we need to put our
young people in the middle of the circle and focus on our need to provide
schools that are safe and secure, free of fear and conducive to learning."

While safety and security are important, she said, "We don't need to turn
our schools into prisons."  

Riley will be one of four panelists for a May 18 teleconference being
produced by United Methodist Teleconference Connection (UMTC), a unit of the
church's official communications agency, United Methodist Communications.

A former school principal who lives in Raleigh, N.C., Riley warned against
jumping to conclusions about what is needed. "Walk-through metal detectors,
fencing, lighting and surveillance cameras are tools we can use, but there
are other things we can do. We need to focus on the 'people aspect' of
school safety, what we usually refer to as the 'school climate.'" 

The challenge, she continued, is to encourage positive relations student to
student, student to teacher, parent to teacher, staff member to staff
member. "It is  important that the adult community provide positive role
models and choose healthy behavior over unhealthy behavior."

Adults expect more from young people than from themselves, Riley said. "What
can we expect when young people see that adults deal with conflict by waging
war or emptying sports benches for a brawl in the middle of a court or
field? I know adults say 'do as I say, not as I do,'  but everyone pays
attention to actions."

Riley said she will describe during the May 18 teleconference some of the
strategies that can be used to deal with violence in the schools. These
include conflict management, peer mediation and Students Against Violence
Everywhere (SAVE).  

"Each of these strategies is peer-focused," she explained. "Young people are
paying more attention to what other young people are saying and doing than
to what adults are telling them.. Our hope is that using peer pressure in a
positive way will help get some of this turned around."

Churches can open lines of communications with the schools and offering
assistance in order to ensure safe environments for learning, Riley said.
She commended churches that have worked with schools to create church-based
alternative learning programs for young people in trouble at school. "It
certainly beats putting these kids out on the street," she said. 

More information is available at the North Carolina Center for the
Prevention of School Violence's site, www.ncsu.edu/cpsv, on the Internet.

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