Your Dues Did It | 15-Minute Activist

News
Little Steps, But a Long, Long Way To Go

Congress is spending millions on a billion-dollar problem: school safety. It’s time for a new Congress.

First, the good news about school safety. Despite tragic incidents over the past two years in schools from Springfield, Oregon to Littleton, Colorado, “school-associated violent deaths remain extremely rare events,” U.S. Department of Education official William Modzeleski recently told the Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee.

Modzeleski, director of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program, reported that the “largest problem for schools—in magnitude—is not violent crime, but discipline issues and non-violent crime.”

“American schools are relatively safe places,” stresses NEA school safety lobbyist Jon Bernstein. “The number of kids caught and expelled for gun possession has dropped dramatically, and many states are taking the lead on gun control.”

But this isn’t the time to sit back. There are still guns in schools and still troubled kids who need help, and Congress has done precious little to address these problems.

In the wake of the Columbine High shootings, the Senate passed a juvenile justice bill, backed by NEA, that contains sensible gun safety measures. This bill, S. 254, would require child safety locks and devices on new handguns, outlaw juvenile possession of semiautomatic weapons, require background checks at gun shows and pawn shops, and ban the importation of high-capacity ammunition magazines.

But this legislation has been bottled up in a House-Senate conference committee since last summer, held hostage by fierce House resistance to any sort of gun control.

NEA backs the gun safety provisions of S. 254. But NEA is also calling for legislation holding adults responsible if a child gains access to an improperly stored, loaded firearm and uses it to commit a crime.

NEA, meanwhile, supports the removal of students who bring weapons to school, but NEA policy also calls for the placement of these children in alternative public school settings that meet their needs.

The gap, in short, remains wide between NEA and Congress on gun safety. Federal lawmakers did take some baby steps toward safer schools in the Fiscal Year 2000 budget. The final appropriations package includes:

• A $40 million increase for the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, including a $15 million increase to train middle school safety and drug coordinators. Among the tasks of coordinators: help schools identify and adopt successful, research-based drug and violence prevention strategies.
• $45 million for a new small high school initiative designed to enhance school safety. The money will enable districts to create schools within schools, establish career academies, or restructure the school day to increase personal attention to students.
• A $20 million first-time program for elementary school counselors.
• Continuation of the $180 million FY 1999 funding level for school resource officers.
• A $254 million funding increase for 21st Century Learning Centers, or after-school programs. “Clearly, after-school hours are high-crime time,” notes NEA lobbyist Joel Packer. “The purpose of this program is to provide a safe learning environment with academic support, mentoring, and drug and alcohol counseling.”

But there’s so much more Congress should be doing to make schools safer, stresses NEA chief lobbyist Diane Shust, “particularly in appropriating new money—not combining money from other sources—for school-based mental health services and the training of educators in identification of early warning signs of violent student behavior.

“Teachers get minimal training in child abuse,” Shust adds, “even though there is mandatory reporting in each state of abuse and neglect. The unevenness of this training is paralleled by the lack of training in mental health issues. If you have mental services in place, kids will come to school ready to learn—we know they can be salvaged.”

It may be that nothing can salvage the current Congress, which doesn’t grasp the complexity of the student problems NEA members confront each day and how those problems impact learning and safety.

So here’s the other good news on school safety: This November, every House seat and 33 Senate seats will be up for grabs. That’s a chance to elect people more knowledgeable about modern schools and students.

“As the political season begins,” advises NEA political affairs manager Jack Pacheco, “we need to hold elected people accountable on the critical issue of school safety.

“Remember,” he adds, “that two of every 100 people who walk into the voting booth in the general election will be NEA members. Given the close margin in contested seats in the last election, NEA members will be able to make a real difference. And where candidates stand on the school safety issue will determine how our members will vote.”

For more information
from NEA on safe schools, go to www.nea.org/issues/safescho.

Your Dues Did It

Computer Mice That Roared: E-mail messages from thousands of NEA-members, enlisted as “cyber-lobbyists” through www.nea.org/lac, helped persuade Congress to back off plans to slash education spending by 18 percent. Instead, the final Fiscal Year 2000 budget increases education funding by 6.2 percent. The budget maintains the federal class size reduction program and boosts funding for programs like IDEA, Title I, and safe and drug-free schools.

Paras Take Note: Some members of Congress wanted to eliminate Title I paraeducators, while others wanted arbitrary para mandates. But NEA lobbying helped win legislation that continues paras’ role and allows their academic requirements to be shaped by local needs. More at www.nea.org/esp.

15-Minute Activist

The Goal: Win allies in the campaign for safer, saner schools.

Your Assignments:

• Tell your members of Congress about the counseling and mental health services your school needs to help troubled children—and share this knowledge with PTA and school board members.
• Write letters to your local newspaper editor on the need for services to help troubled kids.
• Check out child advocacy coalitions in your community. If you like what you see, join!

Here’s how to get started: Write a letter to your members of Congress at http://congress.nw.dc.us/nea/elecmail.html.