# boston public !



## BSP268 (May 1, 2006)

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | December 29, 2006
The number of weapons confiscated in and around Boston's public schools has risen 42 percent in the last five years, mirroring a citywide rise in youth violence.
School police found 577 weapons, mostly knives, in the 2005-06 school year, compared with 407 during the 2001-02 school year. Violent crimes, mostly assaults and robberies, increased 14 percent during the same period, with 902 occurrences in the 2005-06 school year. The crimes include assaults against teachers, other school staff, and students.
The increase in school crime has intensified police and city officials' desire to figure out how to stop neighborhood problems from reaching the school yard, city and police officials say.
Eight out of 1,000 youths in Boston were victims of shootings this year, compared with 6 out of 1,000 in 2005, according to a City Council report.
Students have told school police and principals that they fear for their safety on their way to and from school and carry weapons -- including knives, box cutters, and razor blades -- for protection. The students often stash the weapons in bushes, dumpsters, and planters around school grounds before entering the building, police say, and retrieve them on the way out.
"We're a reflection of the neighborhoods," said John Sisco, chief of the Boston School Police. "The vast majority of serious incidents start in the neighborhoods and spill over into schools."
Part of the increase in weapons found may stem from more rigorous searches for them, said school police, who have begun conducting sweeps of school yards for weapons. Of the city's 38 high schools, 16 now use metal detectors. The school system is also adding surveillance cameras to high schools in Charlestown and West Roxbury to monitor hallways and entrances. The crimes have occurred primarily in high schools and middle schools, officials said. The middle and high school population in the city has dropped 3 percent since 2001-02, according to state enrollment data.
Charlestown High School installed two walk-through metal detectors in October after two students were arrested for a shooting outside the school. The machines, though, haven't eliminated the problem. After the machines were installed, school police found more knives on the school football field and in a neighboring housing development, said Headmaster Michael Fung.
Gang problems have surged in the last two years, Fung said, and some groups of Charlestown High students, who come from all over the city, have run into problems with neighborhood gangs.
"It's a hot public health issue that should be dealt with," Fung said.
The trend in the current school year is more positive, school officials said, with both violent crimes and the number of weapons confiscated down compared with the same period last school year. From September through December, school police found 199 weapons, including two guns, compared with 232 weapons during the same period last school year.
School officials said the system has been expanding violence prevention programs at all grade levels, and teachers and staff have been trained to be more vigilant about reporting incidents, even minor ones, to school police.
"We have put in place a real effort to make school safety our first priority because it's a prerequisite to learning," said James McIntyre, chief operating officer for the Boston Public Schools.
Braulio Soto , a senior at The Engineering School in Hyde Park, said violence at his school has dropped since the 1,100-student Hyde Park High was converted into three small schools -- the 350-student Engineering School is one of them -- two years ago.
"It's gotten safer, little by little," Soto said. "Everybody watches out for each other. If there's a fight, a teacher will be there in five seconds because it's a small school. I actually feel good walking down the halls."
School police have also cultivated better relationships with students in the last couple of years and rely on them to report weapons and other violence, Sisco said. The school system now has 82 police officers, who work in all middle and high schools; there were 67 in 2001. Most of the 38 high schools and 18 middle schools have two to four officers, he said.
But Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said more school police should patrol school hallways. The school system does not break down which assaults on staff happen to teachers, but the union, based on members it has worked with, estimates that students assault 80 to 100 teachers a year, usually when teachers try to break up fights, he said.
In November, a 14-year-old student at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury punched his teacher in the face and fled. Police found him with a loaded gun in his waistband.
Chuck McAfee, Madison Park's headmaster, said all types of students, including those on the honor roll, are carrying weapons for protection. Most have no intention of ever using them in school, he said. At Madison Park, any student caught with a weapon is suspended and sent to a counseling intervention center for five days, he said.
McAfee said he is concerned by the number of young people with bravado attitudes who are quick to throw punches for minor reasons, including because classmates look at them the wrong way. Students who fight are suspended and cannot return without going through peer mediation, a program that Madison started two years ago, McAfee said. The program, where peers try to help other teens find peaceful solutions to their disputes, has helped cut down on fights, he said.
Manuel J. Rivera, superintendent of the Rochester (N.Y.) City School District and who will become Boston's next superintendent in July, said he has been addressing similar problems in Rochester. Rochester has added more crime prevention programs along with more metal detectors, security cameras, and school police, Rivera said.
Rochester students, like those in Boston, are carrying weapons for protection, he said.
One neighborhood is so dangerous that Rivera allowed the school system to transport students from their homes to their high school, just across the street. Adults in Rochester have also organized "safe passage routes," standing on street corners to make sure students get to school safely, he said.
The Boston City Council's youth violent crime prevention committee, formed last January, has recommended that more schools teach students about conflict resolution and that the city hire more street workers to connect at-risk students to afterschool programs, said Councilor Michael Ross , chairman of the committee.
"Schools ought to be the safest of safe havens," said council president Michael F. Flaherty. " These are sad times when students feel they need to arm themselves for protection just to come to school."


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