She Said-TOPIC: School safety-More counselors, support staff can help troubled teens

Is increasing school violence just one symptom of an increasingly violent society, as some have suggested? Statistics don’t bear this out with crime, especially murder, supposedly on the downswing.

Or is it a symptom of a celebrity-crazed society where even troubled young folks decide to grab a moment of notoriety before ending their own sad existence?

I would argue the latter, but it’s all academic; school violence must be dealt with as a devastating reality in the world we live in today.

Increased security at our schools in Warren County is not the solution. At Warren County High School, we have three student resource officers (SROs), all trained at the police academy with extra courses required centering on school safety issues and continuing education mandated. The middle school has one SRO.

In order to make schools as secure as courtrooms with one entry via metal detector passage, we would probably need to hire more SROs for both the high school and middle school, as well as add another hour or so to the beginning of the school day. It simply isn’t feasible to funnel the 2,000-plus students and adults through a metal detector each day. It works in courtrooms because the number of folks a courtroom holds is much less.

And where are these students getting the guns they’re bringing to schools? In almost every case I’ve read, the guns were acquired at relatives’ homes where the troubled youth had access to guns not kept properly secured in safes or access to the keys to secured firearms.

My solution to school violence is to address the problem at its roots. Troubled teens. Adolescence is without a doubt the roughest stage of life and parents and teachers must pull together to spot signs of potentially lethal anger before it erupts.

Let’s put together programs aimed at educating parents on signals given by troubled teens. Let’s spend the money not on extra SROs and metal detectors and longer school days, but by adding more guidance counselors known as student assistance program counselors who don’t have to concentrate on testing and the other minutia of academia, but specialize in dealing with emotionally troubled teens.

As for the recent furor created at the middle school by graffiti written on the bathroom wall, I say bravo to the students for texting each other with safety concerns. I’d rather have 300 students out of class for a day or part of a day than 15 dead and wounded and countless others traumatized for life.

After all, aren’t colleges and universities using text messaging as a means of getting the word out of trouble on campus?