Addressing School Violence
May 29, 2008
By Jeff Adachi and Angela Chan
Nearly half of 8,000 San Francisco high school students recently surveyed believe that violence at school is a serious problem. This alarming statistic requires greater focus on reducing violence, bullying and harassment in our schools. Students cannot learn at their full potential if they fear for their safety.
This need is particularly acute for Asian and Pacific American youth, who comprise 48 percent of the 56,000 students enrolled in the San Francisco Unified School District. In February 2007, predominantly APA schools in SFUSD — including Lincoln and Washington High Schools — had among the highest number of incident reports involving violence of all high schools in the district.
Many of these incidents involve racially motivated violence. A 2004 survey of APA youth in San Francisco found that 37 percent had been victims of violence by a person who is not APA, and 38 percent of APA youth cited racial tension as the cause of fights at school. Yet, incidents of violence and harassment often go unreported due to fear of retaliation, trauma, and victims’ lack of knowledge of what constitutes a hate crime.
Violence in schools results in a higher number of student suspensions and expulsions, which lead to truancy and increased dropout rates. According to a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, there were over 332,000 suspensions statewide for drugs and violence last year, an increase of 16,000 from the previous year. In the Bay Area alone, there were over 52,000 suspensions for drugs and violence.
Cultural and language barriers pose unique challenges to APA parents whose child may be subjected to suspension or expulsion. Among APA youth surveyed in 2004, 74 percent indicated that they translated for their parents some or all of the time. Non-English speaking parents may be unable to fully comprehend and assist their children should they face school disciplinary action and/or become involved in the juvenile justice system.
However, steps can be taken to reduce school violence and divert youth from the juvenile justice system. In early May, over 250 youth, parents, government leaders and community service providers gathered at the Public Defender’s Juvenile Justice Summit to develop an action plan to improve school safety. A three-pronged strategy was developed to confront and reduce violence in school:
(1) Teaching Nonviolence at School
Beginning in elementary school, schools should incorporate into their curriculum lessons on anger management, conflict mediation, cultural competency and the consequences of violence. Additionally, schools should involve families in violence prevention efforts by offering multilingual workshops for families, teachers and administrators to publicize anti-harassment policies, and by including parents in developing plans for addressing school-wide safety issues.
(2) Involving Community in the Solution
Restorative justice programs, such as San Francisco’s Peer Court program, involve the youth victim, the youth offender and the school community in holding the offender accountable, while at the same time developing solutions to repair the harm that was caused by the offender’s actions. These types of promising conflict mediation programs should be more consistently supported and expanded throughout the district, because they empower our youth to be a part of the solution and reduce the numbers of youth entering the juvenile system. Community-based organizations also should develop partnerships with restorative justice programs and schools to connect youth victims and offenders with needed services, including counseling and mentoring.
(3) Parents Taking an Active Role
Parents must take an active role in ensuring the safety of their children at school. Parents should look for signs of victimization, such as depression, drug and alcohol use, withdrawal from family and friends, truancy and lowered academic performance. If they suspect their child is a victim of violence or bullying, they should immediately report this to school officials or to the district using the multilingual Safe School Line: (415) 241-2141. Parents should also reinforce the importance of dispute resolution skills that children learn at school to provide a consistent message of nonviolence to their children.
Addressing the problem of youth violence in our schools will not be easy. However, with schools, communities and families committed to long-term, collaborative approaches, we will reach the goal of creating a safe school environment for all youth.
Jeff Adachi is the elected public defender of the City and County of San Francisco. Angela Chan is a juvenile justice and education attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, a nonprofit civil rights organization. View the Juvenile Justice Summit online: sfpublicdefender.org.
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A while ago, someone complained about Asian parents in the Bay Area opposing integration of white-Asian students with black/Latino students. There were allegations of racism against Asian parents who feared that their hardworking Asian kids would be influenced and dragged down by low-performing black/Latino students.
I don’t live in the Bay Area and don’t know the specifics of the situation, but an article like above illustrates some reasons why Asian parents and students oppose racial integration of schools.
Most Asian and many white kids attend schools to learn and prepare for colleges and the professional world. They want decent academic standards, and safe environment that will help them succeed in life.
Most black and many Latino students, on the other hand, do little to no work at school, cuss out their teachers, make instruction impossible for other students who wish to learn, engage in random violence and drug trade. Only a small minority move onto colleges, while most drop out and head to jails.
A school’s culture and environment has huge impace on the students’ learning and achievement. Schools plagued by gang violence and low academic standards fail vast majority of their students, even those who prefer to work hard and succeed.
It is common knowledge that black and Lation students are typically 2-5 years behind their grade levels, while Asians are about 2 years above their grade levels. Thus, mixing in Asian students with black-Latino students will lead to plummeting of academic standards and the commonly observed harassment of Asian students by black students.
There’s a reason that conscientious Asian parents pay more for homes in high-performing school districts. They want their children to be successful professionals. Mixing in with the wrong crowd would hinder the ambition of these Asian parents, and leave their children behind in the ever competitive global economy.
If black/Latino students seek lucrative careers in drug trade, prositution, organized crime, etc., let them be all they want to be, but please leave the Asian kids alone to do their work, and last but not least, don’t harass Asian kids because the bad impression blacks/Latinos make on Asians will come back to haunt them someday.