School safety: Vigilant, but still vulnerable

They have tried everything: Armed guards. Metal detectors. Security cameras. Expulsions and suspensions. Cash rewards to tipsters and counseling campaigns for troubled teenagers.

Schools across the country have never been more worried or more vigilant about the kind of student fury that exploded Monday at Red Lake High School. They have never known more about the warning signs of adolescent violence.

But many schools still feel vulnerable to attack -- and are constantly searching for better ways to feel safe.

In the six years since a massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado focused the nation's attention on classroom security, the rate of violent crime on or near school grounds has declined.

The death toll has not.

Last school year, to the shock of some educators, the national tally rose to 42 -- nearly double the number of victims in the first few years following Columbine.

"To have that increase after all that has been done to better secure schools underscores just how difficult this problem is to solve," said Ronald Stephens, the director of the National School Safety Center, which tracks violence at schools.

Frank Zenere, who leads an emergency response team that the National Association of School Psychologists dispatches to classrooms convulsed by violence, said the fight for safety is far from won -- and that some educators still either mistakenly believe they are not at risk or rely only on simple security steps.

"Across the landscape, you'll see a ton of material out there now about the threat of bullying, or the victimization some students feel," Zenere said. "We're making inroads. But just clearing hallways or battening down the hatches does not make a school safe. You really have to find ways to deal with the emotional health of students, too. And you have to start over with every new generation of adolescents. It's a constant battle."

A rash of school shooting sprees across the country in the last decade has given rise to an industry focused on student violence and prompted intensive investigations of the problem.

One report by the U.S. Secret Service that examined dozens of student shootings dating back decades offered schools a detailed guide for spotting potentially deadly trouble.

The report, completed in 2002, found that student rampages are rarely impulsive acts and that often some of the attacker's classmates were aware of the idea but told no one.

It also found that many attackers felt bullied or persecuted at school and had well-known troubled lives.

Other research suggests that school shootings seem most likely to occur in the spring, for reasons that are not quite clear.

Some psychologists say they suspect that since the season is near the end of the school year, it is a time when students become most despondent over grades, or most fed up with how they are treated by classmates.

Some studies of school violence also have found that only a small percentage of students who are being bullied, or who sense that a classmate is on the verge of causing others harm, believe that telling adults will help. In fact, many fear it will only lead to more harassment.

Many schools are heeding those warnings -- and thwarting violence -- by deluging students with pleas to speak up anytime they see a hint of trouble.

One campaign that has spread to schools nationwide is called "Silence Hurts," which in part encourages students to report tips anonymously, in drop boxes placed in classroom halls.

Other schools are trying unusual new tactics.

In Minnesota, some are inviting a group called Critters and Company to speak to student assemblies about coping with teasing and stress. The group tries to connect with students through storytelling presentations that include live animals -- from parrots to porcupines.

Greg Olson, who runs the group, said it uses animals because research shows that their presence helps story messages stick in student minds.

He has brought the anti-violence show to elementary and middle-school students on the Red Lake Reservation in recent years.

"Red Lake has been working hard on this issue," Olson said. "Schools all over the state are continually looking for answers. But there's just no perfect response to this problem."

Some schools know their new campaigns are paying off. Students at high schools in St. Paul and Eden Prairie, for example, helped stop possible campus attacks last year by reporting a sighting of a gun and scribbled threats of violence.

But debate on the severity of the threat schools face, and the proper responses to it, persists.

Large-scale violence is still rare. There are more than 80,000 schools across the country; few have ever experienced mass killings.

"Dealing with this problem is like walking a tightrope," said William Lassiter, a school safety specialist for the Center for the Prevention of School Violence. "We don't want to scare people, but we still have to face the reality that violence really could occur at any school. And even after all that's happened, some schools still don't believe that."

In the hope of preventing violence, some schools have adopted zero-tolerance disciplinary rules and are expelling or suspending students for months if they are caught with a gun, knife or any other item that conceivably could be a weapon.

Others are isolating students who have behavioral problems in alternative schools for chronic troublemakers. But some educators worry those steps only leave some adolescents and teenagers more alienated and angry.

Across the country, state legislators also are advocating bills that would define bullying at school as an offense that should lead to suspension. But other lawmakers are scoffing at the proposed measures, saying that taunts and teasing often builds character in young people.

"Schools have gotten much better on some things, like how to physically secure a building," Lassiter said. "But on other issues, there's still debate."

And some analysts say there is only so much schools can do.

"Some schools have practically been turned into armed camps, but they still have to face this problem because of all the influences that students have outside of schools," said Jack Spencer, a sociologist at Purdue University who studies school violence.

"Our focus really needs to be on the culture as a whole. We live in a violent culture and have to face that."

Rene Sanchez is atrsanchez@startribune.com