April 20, 1999, the
morning was as usual like other mornings at the Columbine High School. The school was in session, all students were busy with their class work, discussing with their peers about their schedules, their
personal lives,…. Everything was going just fine until 11:05 am. The shooting spree rocked the school ground: screaming, running, horrified sound of fire alarms, deadly gun fires from automatic
weapons, blood, dead bodies everywhere. At last the TV special announcement broke the news. Parents call to the school jammed the telephone system. The modern telephone network was unable
to handle these massive calls. The school compound was surrounded by more than 800 law enforcement agents. TV snapshots showed thousands of parents, guardians, teachers, and the general public
gathered at the scene. Everybody was standing helplessly, crying, and tearing their hair. The nation stopped breathing for a while, tears on eyes, silence everywhere. The final report was,
"Fifteen young lives ended in the shooting spree." This horrified news shook the nation. The sorrowing nation asking the question, "Why?".
Skimming through the list of school
shootings and pondering about the pain of those who lost their beloved children, I was thinking something must be done. A cold stream started flowing from my brain to the toes of my feet. All on a
sudden I started sweating, thinking only "Where is the end of this epidemic?". The list of school shootings is getting larger every year, Columbine High, Littleton, CO; Beach High, Savannah,
GA; Stranahan High, Fort Lauderdale, FL; Thurston High, Springfield, OR; Smeadley Elementary, Philadelphia, PA; ….The National School Safety Center's statistical data: from 1992 school year till April, 2000;
the school related violent death totaled 267, including 206 gun related. After a heavy breath, I was continuing skimming through the report: pre-1998 victims of school shooting averaged at 28 lives/yr.;
1998-1999 reports 29 lives/yr.; bully related deaths 12; hate crimes 16. It is very painful to watch the unexpected and immature departure of young lives. The concerned citizens raising the
question "How to stop this epidemic?". I was looking through the window and desperately was trying to identify some flying objects: not for flying saucers but for a flock of flying white pigeons.
These repeated school shootings throughout the United States have drawn public attention to school safety issues. The Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998 report, suggests that
the vast majority of America's schools are safe places. This report also argued that the fear in parents, teachers, and students' minds about nations unsafe school system is not based on fact. Although the
pre-1998 research findings indicate a decreasing trend in the school violence, recent stories raise a fundamental question about the gravity of violence, i.e., methods of killing, number of deaths per
violence, pre-planned shootings, and so on. Such violence creates fear and fear in the mind of the concerned citizens can no longer be ignored. Repeated unfortunate incidents during the past
years in the nation's school grounds have shaken public sentiment, forcing a vast majority of us to ignore these reports.
The US public school system is one of the most resourceful and
well-funded programs in the world. We spend huge amounts of money to develop the best school system and keep our children safe and out of trouble. While investing billions of dollars in the system we
have failed to achieve our goal on safety. Federal, state and local governments are trying to identify this problem for proper corrective action. This is one of the hottest topics of discussion
during the end of the last century and into the new millennium. The actions so far been taken by different governments have a very limited proven success stories which can promise a comfortable school
environment. Concerned citizens are posing questions about the adequacy of these safety programs and demand to see the public school ground as a safe and healthy place.
School violence
is not confined to any specific geographical area; it has global characteristics. During the last two decades a lot of research was carried out on these issues by various public/private organizations.
Different organizations held conferences and seminars where distinguished authors discussed different remedial efforts. Some of them talked about gun control issues, influence of entertainment industries,
drugs, gangs, bullies, and overall social justice systems. In some cases we found that political issues rather than the actual problem became the focus of attention. The intention of this site is to
focus on the real issues from a neutral viewpoint. Our goal is not to engage in politics but to provide a solution.
There is lot of important information available on this issue, however, it
is sporadic. It is time consuming to identify such information. One of our initial goals is to collect/link this information and place them in a central location. This will provide our
stakeholders with the opportunity to acquire more information in a limited time. This site intend to bring all stakeholders to a common platform, dissipate ideas and knowledge and target sensible remedies of
our problem stricken school systems. Due to limited resources, it might take several months for us to gather and post a handful of information for this site. But we are committed to do so, we will
continuously update this site with other resources for our readers. We urge all concerned to provide information about success stories on school safety so that we can link data in our archives for
general use.
A CHANGE INITIATIVE:
This website is focused on the public awareness program on school safety issues. This project is planning to bring all
stakeholders to a common platform to share their knowledge and define appropriate solutions in abating this problem. This project is a blend of several successful initiatives/practices in the past, such as
the American Assembly (Dwight Eisenhower, 1950), establishing a sense of urgency (Leading Change; John P. Kotter, 1996), and the use of strength of modern technology e-based communication. The American
Assembly concept is utilized to bring all stakeholders together (teachers, parents, school administrations, and students) to build consensus around solutions to school safety issue. Kotter's idea on
establishing a sense of urgency is introduced here to achieve spontaneous support on this issue. To understand the severity of school violence, especially about school shootings, newspaper clippings
have been added. This was done intentionally to create a comprehensive public outcry as a part of the public awareness program. We will create public awareness and initiate a response program
using e-based communication. This website will serve as a central information warehouse, where relevant information will be available at our fingertips. It is a proven fact that a proactive initiative
can bring major success in many endeavors. In the near future we will try to hold town home meetings on this issue to receive feedback from the stakeholders. We believe, should we all work
together, we will see flying white pigeons in our sky.
CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION:
This project invites cultural transformation in our daily life and is based on the belief
that a healthy society can contribute in different ways to abate any problem. A harmonious social structure can reduce violence in the society, which will contribute to shaping our public school
system. It will be a volunteer effort in which every one may participate, thereby reducing segregation in society over time. It is the nature of human being to contribute in any change effort when they
believe that a change is required. If a common platform exists where they can speak, share knowledge, where they feel that they are not leftovers they come forward and put their thrust for
change.
We invite cultural transformation in our everyday life, which is based on the belief that a healthy society can contribute in different ways to abate any problem. Our plan is to
create a bridge among the citizen groups so that the existing social problems can be resolved nonviolently. When a common platform exists where they can speak, share knowledge, where they feel that they are
not leftovers they come forward and put their thrust for a change. One part of the whole process is this website. The major part of our initiative will be holding various discussions among the
stakeholders so that a sensible alternative can be formulated based on the individual needs.
This website provides information about several school safety models and will continuously be
updated with postings of other successful stories. Parents and community members who are not actively involved in their neighborhood schools might not be aware of resources available for use. On
the other hand, they might not have enough time to visit libraries, or surf hundreds of web sites to identify those resources. This interactive website will provide an opportunity to those groups to
learn about the problem in detail and propagate their idea to enrich their public school system.
In addition, this website provides information on major public/private resources available
for use. Information on scholarship money, summer job, research opportunities, mentoring programs, public sponsored youth programs, availability of education funds and related information will be available
at this site.
Our model can serve as a skeleton for any Public-Private Partnership model. Discussions based on analysis of different elements on school shootings are used here to provide some
ideas to be considered before formulating other safe school model. This model is based on fact-finding investigations, research data on violence, and a blend of several successful initiatives in the
past, which can be refereed to as the "Best Management Practice".
