Strategic Solutions to School Violence

Based on your responses, I have generated a series of questions that I believe might take us closer to thinking about likely solutions. In fact you have made valuable suggestions that are likely to work, however, I do think that athough we are faced with pervasive crime and disorder that in fact, where schools are concerned the local conditions and context of the school are key factors in the development and design of solutions. No doubt as you say, we need the will, the vision and the commitment to make any intervention work.So here are my questions?

1. Should we be training teachers to come up with ways to mitigate school violence? If so, how do we accomplish this given the evolving natire of violent and aggressive behaviour?
2. If not, then what is the teacher's role in dealing with violence?
3. Are Guidance Counsellors really trained and prepared to deal with violence in schools?
4. What resources will schools need for prevention and intervention?
5. Have teachers 'dropped the ball' on implementing appropiate classroom behaviour management strategies?
6. When a teacher or other school staff is attacked by a student (or his/her relatives) what is the recourse and how are we to protect teachers?
7. How do schools now deal with criminal and violent activties on their campuses? What is the level of reporting to the police
8. How are incidents such as sexual assualts by students, teachers, other school staff currently dealt with?
9. Are there systems in place for schools to deal with extreme incidents of violence, for example, shooting or homicide?
10. What would be the role of the school psychologist, and how do we accomodate these role in the current school structure given we have Deans of Discipline, Guidance Counsellors and School Resource Officers?
11. How can schools mediate the effects of violent spillover from communities?
12. How can we use the 'hidden curriculum' to re-orient students influenced by a violent sub-culture

PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN QUESTIONS