WK5Crises in Schools

WK5Crises in Schools
CHAPTER 13: Crises in Schools The New-Millennium, Violence-Proof School Building Welcome to the (pretty much) violence-proof school building of the new millennium. We are not spending any money on landscaping, because people can hide behind shrubbery and we want every square inch of the exterior in plain view of security vehicles that will patrol the perimeter on a 24-hour basis, 7 days a week. We really don’t want taggers making their artistic statements on the school or common juvenile delinquents vandalizing it, so we have floodlit the whole facade and built a 10-foot chain-link security fence around the grounds. We maintain a vehicle path around the perimeter so that security vehicles or police cars can easily keep surveillance on the building. We prefer that all students come to school in buses equipped with video monitors and two-way radios. For those few who drive, the student parking lot is enclosed by a 10-foot chain-link fence with razor wire on top. The lot is gated, so all student drivers need passes and hanger tags to get in. A security guard will check all students and parents who come into the parking lot. We also have concrete median dividers angled so that there can be no straight-on assault by individuals intent on drive-by shootings or school bombings. We have only one student entrance into the school where all students must go through a metal detector. Only see-through backpacks are allowed and will be run through an x-ray machine. School uniforms are mandatory. Once students are in the building, all entry and hall doors will be electronically locked down. Teachers have swipe cards so they can move through the building. Closed-circuit TV and a call box at the front entrance enable parents to gain access. Although uniforms are mandatory, you can have your choice of school colors—as long as those colors are not used by any known gangs operating in or around the school. All students must have holographic ID cards attached to their uniforms, as must the faculty. Students also must have GPS locaters, either carried or skin-implanted. All faculty are equipped with panic alarms and carry cell phones with speed-dial numbers preset to call security. Kevlar bulletproof vests in the school colors will be issued to all staff. The building itself has almost no windows; the few, very small windows are made of bulletproof glass. Walls are double-brick thick (newer munitions can fairly easily penetrate a single-brick thickness). A central monitoring station is capable of visual, auditory, and motion surveillance of the entire school building—both inside and out. All classroom doors are equipped with timed electronic locks that can be operated only through a computer program or be overridden from the central monitoring station. Hallways also have locked electronic doors at strategic locations for crowd control and isolation of intruders. The real savings is in building architecture. First, we have downsized the gymnasium. We don’t need bleachers, because crowds are hazardous. Any pep assemblies, sporting events, plays, or pageants will be piped back into classrooms via TV monitors. Athletic events will be played on isolated fields, and spectators can watch via community cable television. As a result, we do not need showers or locker areas. In addition, we have also cut the width of hallways, because there are no lockers in this school—lockers are conducive to hiding contraband. There is no need for a cafeteria. Lunches can be either microwaved in classrooms or hot-packed from a central food preparation facility. Cafeterias are places where students congregate, and a congregation of students provides a setting for dangerous behavior. Thus, cafeterias are becoming as extinct as the little red schoolhouse. There are no faculty bathrooms. Student bathrooms are dangerous settings and must be policed. So while faculty are relieving themselves, they can also watch students. Finally, the administrative area is now a command-and-control center that is target hardened with maximum security measures for its protection as the school’s nerve center. Because most interaction between administrators and students and teachers is by video, there is little if any need for students or teachers to access this area. Therefore, only staff who require access to the administrative area have electronic card keys. The central staff are a little different from the staff of schools in the last millennium. Besides the administrative staff, secretaries, and support personnel such as crisis workers, four school police officers specially trained in dealing with school violence operate from a police-ready room. A central communications staff is in charge of all electronic surveillance and media from the central monitoring station. The principal in this new-millennium school plays a somewhat secondary role. The coadministrator is the chief of security. She has a criminal justice degree and experience in law enforcement, as well as a thorough understanding of computer and security systems. In any emergency, she is the primary decision-making authority. This will happen because the principal does not have the necessary expertise to coordinate security, any more than he would have the ability to operate a nuclear power plant! If you are having trouble picturing exactly what this new-millennium school looks like, a reasonable facsimile would be any correctional facility built in the past 10 years. Universities will change also in the 21st century. Because campuses are spread out over many buildings, the preferred method of security will be a large compound with carefully guarded entrances and high, blast-proof walls topped with razor wire running along the entire perimeter. Access will be carefully controlled; students not only will have to show IDs, but they will also be subjected to iris, handprint, or voice recognition checks. No part of the university campus will be without surveillance cameras, which will be linked to a central command post. If any suspicious activity is spotted, a blue light will start flashing in that area and heavily armed police will be dispatched. Students will also have GPS transmitters that will immediately give their location anywhere on campus to central security (optional at the university level but definitely required in K–12). Students will be required to carry cell phones, and those cell phones must be turned on and keyed to a university threat and warning system that will automatically page the entire student body if a threat is imminent, followed by text message information telling students what to do. Faculty will not like this safety feature, because students’ cell phones will often ring in class when students forget to put them in vibrate mode. Loudspeakers and intercoms all over campus will ensure that every person will hear warnings and evacuation instructions. All buildings will have electronic locking systems, which can be activated immediately upon a threat announcement. All faculty and residence hall staff will be trained to recognize any early danger signs and threats of violence. There will be few commuter students because of the hassle of getting through the checkpoints at the school compound entrances. Most students who do not live on campus will take courses by distance learning or online. Indeed, cars will be parked at least a quarter mile away from university buildings to reduce the threat from car bombs. The campus police chief will be much higher up in the chain of command and will operate out of a hardened command center with a number of technologists to keep all the security apparatus running. Are you appalled at the idea of a school that is in effect a penitentiary? Although we have not seen a school with every one of the attributes just described, we have seen each component just mentioned in at least one school building in the United States. In fact, many experts in school safety have recommended the foregoing features (Astor, 1999; Blauvelt, 1998; Brock, Sandoval, & Lewis, 1996; Dorn & Dorn, 2005; Giduck, 2005; Haynes & Henderson, 2001; Jimerson & Furlong, 2006; Nadel, 2004; Poland, 1999). The National Center for Education Statistics (2010) reports that between the 1999–2000 and 2007–08 school years, there was an increase in the percentage of public schools reporting the use of the following safety and security measures: controlled access to the building during school hours (from 75 percent to 90 percent); controlled access to school grounds during school hours (from 34 percent to 43 percent); students required to wear badges or picture IDs (from 4 percent to 8 percent); faculty required to wear badges or picture IDs (from 25 percent to 58 percent); the use of one or more security cameras to monitor school (from 19 percent to 55 percent); the provision of telephones in most classrooms (from 45 percent to 72 percent); and the requirement that students wear uniforms (from 12 percent to 18 percent). Between the 2003–04 and 2007–08 school years, there was also an increase in the percentage of public schools reporting the use of drug testing for student athletes (from 4 percent to 6 percent), as well as for students in other extracurricular activities (from 3 percent to 4 percent). During the 2007–08 school year, 43 percent of public schools reported that they had an electronic notification system for a schoolwide emergency, and 31 percent of public schools reported that they had a structured, anonymous threat-reporting system. Our somewhat tongue-in-cheek new-millennium school building or college campus may seem patently ludicrous in Carmi, Illinois; Red Lake, Ontario; Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; or your own hometown or university. But to say that such a school building or college campus will never be built is to be so unaware of school violence in the United States that one would believe you have been living off-planet for the past 20 years. The violence that has arisen in schools is the reason many of these building modifications and security measures are being deemed necessary by more and more school districts and universities. In part, that is what this chapter is about. School systems are generally able to deal with developmental crises because they are squarely in the middle of one of the greatest developmental crises of all, growing up! But they have not been prepared to deal with situational crises that arise unexpectedly and violently. Why is this so? First, it has simply not been deemed cost expedient to provide all the material and human support needed (Pitcher & Poland, 1992). Our new-millennium, violence-proof school building is not cheap, and the support personnel to staff it will not be cheap either! Conflicting Statistics The Clery Act requires colleges and universities to report all the crime that happens on their campus, so you might suppose we would have pretty good statistics on what happens in K–12 schools as well. Unhappily, that is not the case because police jurisdictions around the United States do not report crime to the FBI in the same way, nor should you believe that K–12 school administrations, fearful of bad publicity, necessarily report all the crimes that occur in their buildings, nor do students report those crimes out of fear for their own safety. A great deal of debate occurs around whether crime is going up or going down in the more than 90,000 schools in the United States with nearly 50 million students in attendance (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005b). Some research indicates there has been an increase in school violence; a study from the School Violence Resource Center, for example, showed that the percentage of high school students who were threatened or injured with a weapon increased from 1993 to 2001 (School Violence Resource Center, 2003). Other research, however, notes decreases in student victimization rates for both violent and nonviolent crimes during a similar time period (1992–2002; National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). Perhaps more problematic is that the sensational crimes, such as those at Columbine and Virginia Tech, get far more attention than the tens of thousands of mini-aggressions that occur every day and create a climate of fear and hostility in schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005a; National Institute of Justice, 1998). Violent Crime Rates. In summary, the FBI’s comprehensive study of crimes in schools and colleges over a 5-year period (Noonan & Vavra, 2007) found that 3.3 percent of all incidents reported through the National Incident-Based Reporting System involved school locations. The following statistics represent the latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics (2010). Preliminary data on the 2008–09 school year show that there were 38 student, staff, and school-associated nonstudent violent deaths from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009, of which 24 were homicides and 14 were suicides. In 2008, among students ages 12–18, there were about 1.2 million nonfatal crimes at school, including 619,000 thefts and 629,800 violent crimes (from simple assault to serious violent crime). In 2009, 8 percent of students reported being threatened or injured with a weapon, such as a gun, knife, or club, on school property; 10 percent of male students in grades 9–12 reported being threatened or injured with a weapon in the past year, compared to 5 percent of female students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Incidents of Crime. During the 2007–08 school year, 85 percent of public schools recorded that one or more incidents of crime had taken place at school, amounting to an estimated 2 million crimes. This figure translates to a rate of 43 crimes per 1,000 public school students enrolled in 2007–08 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Eleven percent of public schools reported that student acts of disrespect for teachers other than verbal abuse took place on a daily or weekly basis. With regard to other discipline problems reported as occurring at least once a week, 6 percent of public schools reported student verbal abuse of teachers, 4 percent reported widespread disorder in the classroom, 4 percent reported student racial/ethnic tensions, and 3 percent reported student sexual harassment of other students. Interestingly, the percentage of students in grades 9–12 who reported that drugs had been offered, sold, or given to them decreased from 32 percent in 1995 to 23 percent in 2009 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). In 2009, 31 percent of students in grades 9–12 reported they had been in a physical fight at least once during the previous 12 months, and 11 percent said they had been in a fight on school property. Between 1993 and 2009, the percentage of students who reported carrying a weapon at least one day anywhere during the past 30 days declined from 22 percent to 17 percent, and the percentage who reported carrying a weapon at least one day on school property also declined, from 12 percent to 6 percent (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Fear and Avoidance. In 2007, approximately 5 percent of students ages 12–18 reported that they were afraid of attack or harm at school, and 3 percent reported that they were afraid of attack or harm away from school. Smaller percentages of white students (4 percent) and Asian students (2 percent) reported being afraid of attack or harm at school than their black (9 percent) and Hispanic (7 percent) peers. Seven percent of students ages 12–18 reported that they had avoided a school activity or one or more places in school in the previous 6 months because of fear of attack or harm (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Threats to Teachers. During the 2007–08 school year, a greater percentage of teachers in city schools (10 percent) reported being threatened with injury than teachers in town schools (7 percent) or suburban or rural schools (6 percent each). A greater percentage of teachers in city schools (5 percent) and suburban schools (4 percent) reported being physically attacked, compared to teachers in rural schools (3 percent). A greater percentage of secondary school teachers (8 percent) reported being threatened with injury by a student than elementary school teachers (7 percent). However, a greater percentage of elementary school teachers (6 percent) reported being physically attacked than secondary school teachers (2 percent) (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010) Disciplinary Action. Forty-six percent of public schools (approximately 38,500 schools) took at least one serious disciplinary action against a student during the 2007–08 school year. Of the 767,900 serious disciplinary actions taken, 76 percent were suspensions for 5 days or more, 19 percent were transfers to specialized schools, and 5 percent were removals with no services for the remainder of the school year. Although the overall percentage of public schools taking a serious disciplinary action declined between 1999–2000 (54 percent) and 2003–04 (46 percent), there has been no measurable change since then (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). While those are big numbers, in comparison to the 90 million children going to school over that 5-year span it really isn’t a lot—unless, of course, you or your child was one of those statistics or was subject to a microaggression that was never reported. Schools have long been prepared for disasters such as tornadoes and fires, but preparing for these kinds of disasters is relatively simple. The situational crisis that involves violence perpetrated by others on students or teachers is not. Schools are relatively safe places as far as lethality is concerned, with school-associated violent deaths representing less than 1 percent of all homicides that occur among school-age children (Anderson, Kaufman, & Simon, 2001). However, that does not mean schools are absolutely safe havens for learning. Assaults, threats, intimidation, property destruction, bullying, and physical injury occur, and they occur fairly often. They do occur more often in large urban schools, and perhaps more alarmingly they occur more often in middle schools (Kaufman, Chen, & Choy, 2002), but they also occur in rural and suburban schools, and when the media portray those incidents the public is shocked and alarmed that such things could happen (Stewart & MacNeil, 2005). It is not enough that schools must be prepared to deal with the direct effects of a crisis such as a suicide or homicide. School staff must also be prepared for a variety of ripple effects. How to deal with huge numbers of other students affected by the crisis? How to deal with critical and concerned parents? How to keep the school safe without trampling on the rights of individuals who may be under suspicion or alleged to have committed violent acts? How to deal with the media that may descend vulturelike on the school in the event of a crisis? In short, few if any institutions have as many issues to deal with when subjected to such a crisis as a school district does. This chapter will not deal with the potential for terrorist attacks on a school or the effects of a terrorist attack on a community, but you should certainly not disabuse yourself of that notion. The parents, teachers, and students of School Number One in Beslan, Russia, know all too well what the ramifications are, and crisis interveners in the United States have certainly been thinking and planning for just such an occurrence (Dorn & Dorn, 2005; Giduck, 2005; Jimerson & Furlong, 2006; Thompson, 2004; Webber, Bass, & Yep, 2005). The opening of this chapter sounds more like an introductory course in criminology than in crisis intervention. However, you are going to meet some principal players in school crisis intervention who don’t look anything like your U.S. history teacher or school counselor, or at least have very different roles than teaching you about government branches or filling out course schedules. Violence and Youth Why have today’s youth become more violent? Poor parenting practices, an ineffective welfare system, marginalization of minorities and other disenfranchised students, availability of high-powered automatic weapons, racism, the growth of gangs, violence in homes, bullying, lack of male role models, hate crimes, physical abuse, and drug involvement are but a few of the ills that spill over into schools (Blauvelt, 1998; Collier, 1999; Goldstein, 1991; Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998; Grossman, 1995; Hazler, 1996; Miller, Martin, & Schamess, 2003; Pledge, 2003; Poland, 1994; Soriano, Soriano, & Jimenez, 1994). Media Violence. Perhaps the most chilling reasons, though, are proposed by David Grossman in his book, On Killing (1995, pp. 302–305). He proposes that there are three learning theories at work: Classical conditioning is at work when one sits comfortably in front of a movie or television screen watching mayhem and carnage while eating popcorn and drinking a soda. Operant conditioning thrives at video arcades, which provide immediate feedback and rewards for killing and maiming. Social learning enters the scene when a whole new series of role models, such as Freddy Krueger, do not end up saving the girl and kissing the horse, but slash the girl’s throat and the horse’s, too. Glorification of a thug culture interlaced with weapons, women as sexual objects, and drug use are cornerstones of contemporary music and media that cater to youth. Even the movie and television heroes are antiheroes and operate outside the law because the justice system is seen as weak and powerless. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination after reading Grossman’s book to understand why Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, became killing fields, and why drive-by shootings occur at any number of other schools across the United States. There is a continuing debate on how much influence experiencing vicarious violence via television and video games has on the manifesting of that violence in children (Azar, 2010). We believe there shouldn’t be. Brain imaging studies show a clear relationship between brain areas that regulate and govern emotion and images of violence (Bailey, West, & Anderson, 2011; Brummert-Lennings & Warburton 2011; Englehardt et al., 2011; Hummer et al., 2010); Krahe & Moller, 2011; Krahe et al., 2011; Sestir & Bartholow, 2010). A large meta-analysis of violent media and aggression research by Anderson and his associates (2010) strongly suggest that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior. However, there are enough detractors (Ferguson, 2011; Ferguson et al., 2011; Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009, 2010) that the American Psychological Association reversed its 2005 (Price, 2007) stand that the research strongly suggested a link between violent media and aggressive behavior (Azar, 2010). As this chapter is being written, the powerful entertainment lobbies have essentially won out with a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning a California law that prohibited selling M(mature)-rated video games to minors. It may be that there are mediating factors such as family domestic violence, competition, and different degrees of exposure (Zhao & Jiang, 2010), and older adolescents may not have as much reaction as younger ones (Bucolo, 2011), but the preponderance of research shows that the two correlate and almost any elementary school teacher can tell when students have been watching South Park the night before. In summary, while it cannot be said that media violence causes school shootings, Langman’s (2009) in-depth examination of school shooters found that they often have a fascination with violent media and become obsessed with it (p. 8). Modeling. Modeling is an extremely effective way to reinforce behavior. The field of counseling is a great example. Dr. James wants his students to understand empathic understanding. He first lectures his students on various techniques such as open-ended questions and reflection of feelings. The students ask questions, and a classroom discussion ensues. However, empathic understanding and the techniques that facilitate it have only been talked about, not demonstrated. So Dr. James models these techniques in real time in front of the students. The students watch him, ask questions, and then are turned loose to try the techniques out for themselves under his watchful eyes and tuned-in ears in the classroom. Modeling also facilitates violence. Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, put it well when she wrote, after watching the video of Seung-hui Cho, the Virginia Tech murderer, “We’ll be seeing more of that from thousands of disaffected teenagers who watched and thought, ‘Wow! I could do that! Boy, would that teach them a lesson. Everybody would know me then!’” (Noonan, 2007). Cho’s role models were Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris of Columbine High School infamy. Who will see Cho as a role model to emulate? The showing of Cho’s tape by NBC and other networks over and over in the view of millions of children set him up as a role model for those children. Playing a violent video game such as Grand Theft Auto, putting “gangsta” pictures on MySpace, or watching videos of school shooters or slasher movies does not automatically make a child a schoolyard shooter. If that were true, every kid who played Grand Theft Auto would go on a murder spree. However, along with other contributing variables discussed later in this chapter, the potential for violence can grow until those biological, sociological, and psychological factors coalesce into a homicidal gestalt, and little Eddie Haskell turns into Freddy Krueger. The lethality issues to be dealt with in this chapter include potential physical assault by gang members, bullies, the estranged violent student, and suicidal children. However, targeted violence against specific students is not the only crisis that schools face. In addition, natural disasters, terrorist assaults, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse, medical emergencies, and classmate, parent, and teacher deaths are all seen as crises. Crisis in the context of a school, although similar to the definition in Chapter 1, has unique features because of the social structure of the school and the sense of community within the school (Allen et al., 2002). As such, a crisis affects more than one student. It has ripple effects that can tear at the very fabric of the school to the point of destabilizing it (Johnson, 2000, p. 18). Therefore, this chapter will also provide the basic elements of what a school crisis plan should entail as a best bet for prevention, intervention, and postvention, who the players are in that plan, and what their roles are when a crisis of any type strikes a school. Gangs Types of Gangs Of all the other contributors to violent behavior, none appears to have the predictive validity and potential for violent behavior in high school as do gangs (Rainone et al., 2006). The 2009 FBI Gang Assessment reported about 20,000 gangs of different types in the United States with a total of more than 1 million members. They are not just the stereotypical Mafia or Hispanic drug cartels, and they operate from the inner city to the suburbs to rural areas to Indian Reservations (“Gang Threat,” 2009). Twenty percent of public schools reported that gang activities had happened during 2007–08, and 3 percent reported that cult or extremist activities had happened during that school year (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). There are basically five types of gangs that human services workers in school districts are likely to encounter. Homegrown Copycats/Wannabes. There is more than enough media representation of gang members to let every student in the United States who has access to cable TV, movies, magazines, music, or the Internet set up a stereotypical Vicelords, Gangster Disciples, Crips, or Latin Kings–type gang (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 5; U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). “Wannabe” status may make them more dangerous in their attempts to prove how tough and cool they are. Generally they are short-lived. Makeup is composed of any ethnic group resident in the population. Homegrown Survivalist, Aryan Nation, Neo-Nazi, Extreme Right-Wingers. These gangs are based on political/religious philosophies inculcated by adults and in response to the perceived “browning” of America and the supposed threat that entails. They are often supported both financially and/or morally as “youth corps” by both local and national organizations. Members are typically related to or are friends of adults who espouse such views. They may be transitory or stable in terms of membership, depending on adult support available. They specifically target ethnic/racial minority groups for violence. They are almost always Caucasian and “Christian” (Goldstein, 1991, p. 24; Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 7; U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). Transients From Megagangs. Offshoots of megagangs are started by gang members moved to supposedly “safe” rural havens by parents seeking to escape the problems of big-city crime or feeling extreme pressure from law enforcement agencies in their city of origin (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 7; U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). Their children are already members of the gangs they try to escape. These transported gang members start their own gangs. Indian reservations receiving families out of big cities are a prime example of this transient population. Racial/ethnic makeup may be mixed, but these gangs are typically ethnic group or race based. Megagangs Opening New Territory. Increased competition in large metropolitan areas forces gangs to seek new territory to sell their wares (mainly drugs). Interstate arteries and towns adjacent to them are primary targets because of ease of access (Goldstein, 1991, pp. 20–21; Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 7). This is the most formidable type of gang organization. It has older adults who may derive their livelihood from its criminal enterprise. It has a clear hierarchy of members, sophisticated organizational plan and operating rules, large numbers, recruitment programs, financial backing, and the will to be very violent in pursuit of its interests. Racial/ethnic makeup of these gangs is predominately African American or Hispanic in the Midwest, but may be a variety of nationalities on the East or West Coasts. This is the stereotypical street gang of the media (U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). Smorgasbord Home Boys. Some small gangs are started for a variety of reasons, ranging from instrumental criminal behavior such as theft to expressive behavior such as hate crimes or responses to being perceived as social outcasts. The organizing themes of these gangs range from skinhead neo-Nazism to demonology and devil worship to auto theft to retaliation for perceived social injustices perpetrated on them. This gang type generally is transitory and short-lived, with small numbers of members. Depending on the type, it may avoid violence if theft is its major activity or may be extremely violent and sadistic if it is into racism, Satanism, or a response to social ostracism. It is mostly Caucasian in makeup (Goldstein, 1991, pp. 20–24; Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 7; U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). Emergence of Suburban and Rural Gangs Why have gangs or the threat of gang formation become problematic for suburban and rural areas? A variety of trends have emerged that make gang formation a probability for Opie in Mayberry, rural America. The development of diverse, multicultural communities in the United States will proceed at an accelerated rate in the 21st century, particularly in historically white farming communities of the Midwest (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, pp. 63–91). We have generally not had a stellar history in welcoming and integrating newcomers in the United States who don’t look, talk, act, and think like us, as witnessed by the contemporary debate over illegal immigrants. Cable television, the Internet, and other electronic information systems make the most pristine and rustic rural area a part of the global community. Glorification of violence and gangs through electronic media sends children who feel powerless against the world messages about how they can be powerful (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 7). Chat rooms, websites, and e-mail provide gangs plenty of opportunity to talk to Opie. If Opie is feeling alone and powerless out on 1300 Country Road East, he is likely to talk back. All of the ills that assail dysfunctional families are as characteristic of suburban and rural families as they are of urban ones. Gang leaders are highly sensitive to these parentless, throwaway kids and, like Fagan in Oliver Twist, recruit them. The gang becomes a surrogate family (Grossman, 1995, pp. 303–305; Melton, 2001). Gang Intervention/Prevention Programs Although this book is about crisis intervention, the fact is that when dealing with gangs, prevention is far more likely to be effective than intervention. After a gang has taken root and grown, fear and intimidation become huge obstacles to constructive change. Changing gang members’ attitudes about gang membership is anything but easy. Gang members typically fall into what are called “at-risk” student categories. By definition, “at risk” means that a young person is liable to be an academic or social failure when the potential for becoming a responsible and productive adult is limited by barriers at home, at school, or in the community (Fusick & Bordeau, 2004). At-risk students are truant; have trouble with the legal system; are characterized by impulsive behavior, self-doubts, anxiety, depression, drug use, and suicidal ideation; are poor learners; and have few bonds with the culture of the school. They are what Melton (2001) calls “phantom students” because, much like the Phantom of the Opera, they wear tough masks to hide their emotional scars and largely remain in the shadows of the school culture. Because of the publicized school shootings in recent years, a great deal of interest has been generated in what are believed to be two of its root causes—at-risk students and bullying or being bullied. While not all at-risk students are gang members, many gang members are at-risk students, lost between the cracks and dropping out of school. Not all bullies are gang members, but the reverse is generally true, because bullies and gangs both gain power and control over others by fear, threat, and intimidation. Therefore, in discussing intervention methods with “gang” members, the same characteristics and procedures also apply to at-risk students and bullies. Violence prevention approaches are legion; they range from teaching students warning signs of impending student violence (Alvarez, 1999) to teaching body movement exercises for self-control (Kornblum, 2002). The following approaches have all been tried, with varying degrees of success, with children who make up the bulk of gang membership. Counseling. Counseling, in the sense of having a continuing, person-centered, nonevaluative, nonjudgmental dialogue with a gang member, is one of the least effective intervention strategies (Lipsey, 1992). Given their past experiences with uncaring and punitive adults, alienated and disenfranchised gang members are suspicious and do not establish relationships easily. They are ultrasensitive to perceived threats and insults, and they are manipulative and reluctant to share information (Melton, 2001). John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan (1997) propose that challenging such kids is an excellent way to start establishing rapport and trust. CW: So you don’t want to be in here getting this counseling “crap.” Is that about right? Gangbanger: Yeah, that’s right. I’m outta here. CW: Okay. I’ll just call your probation officer, and he can make the arrangements for you to go to the Wilder Youth Facility if you don’t want to do this. Now, you are adjudicated here for 12 sessions, but since you don’t want to be here, I can see us doing this in, say, 6 sessions, if you are smart enough to catch onto this stuff and not give me a bunch of “crap,” as you say, and work hard to get through this stuff. What’s your choice? Counseling that uses reality therapy (Glasser, 1965, 2000) and targets behavior and consequences of actions is more likely to be successful when gangbangers are constantly confronted with their actions and given choices as to what they want to do (Loeber et al., 1998; Sandhu, 2000). The same is true of victims. Victim: (Lucinda has been absent from school the last 3 days and is talking to the school counselor about her absences. Finally she breaks down sobbing and tells the counselor why.) This is the fifth time the Rosebuds have taken my lunch money in the past two weeks, but they threatened to break my legs, and they can do that. I’ve seen Tina do that with a ball bat. She’s crazy and scares me to death. They also told me not to snitch or they would hurt my little sister. School Counselor: Lucinda, I’d really like to get Officer Bates in on this and have you tell him. It is not your fault that you are being mugged. You didn’t ask for it, and you don’t deserve it. It isn’t normal, and it isn’t okay. You don’t have to face this on your own. I and other people will help you. Victim: No way! No cops! I could get killed. School Counselor: I understand that it’s scary, and there are some real risks. We will keep this confidential, and no one will know but the three of us. But you are not the only one who is getting mugged. You can make a choice about helping to stop this. I have an idea you are pretty tired of getting assaulted. School should be a place to come and have fun with your friends and learn. It is not a place you should be afraid to come to. Officer Bates and I are working with a lot of teachers and other kids. If enough kids like you say “That’s enough!” we can stop this. I won’t force you to see the school police officer or even tell him. I think your parents need to know about this. If you want to have your parents come in and talk, we can do that too. The choice is yours. The counselor acknowledges the danger to Lucinda as real. Attempts to coerce a student into informing are fraught with ethical peril and quite literally can be dangerous to the student if a great deal of care is not taken to keep the information confidential until the school and law enforcement are ready to act. However, if the counselor feels that the threat to Lucinda is high (see the definitions of low, medium, and high threats later in the chapter), her parents should be informed and so should the police. School Resource Officer. The crisis worker attempts to bring the school resource police officer (SRO) into the crisis because multidisciplinary school pupil personnel service teams that involve the SRO are critically important to stopping threatening and intimidating behavior (James, Logan, & Davis, 2011; O’Toole, 2003; Welsh & Domitrovich, 2006). Police in the schools can do much more than direct after-school traffic and monitor ball games. SROs go through a good deal of training beyond the initial police academy (National Association of School Resource Officers, 2011). Coordinating intelligence between the police department and the school, working conjointly with school human services workers in gang prevention programs, helping students problem-solve, finding resources and making referrals, deterring violence, obtaining information about illegal activities, role modeling, and mentoring are proactive measures that integrate police officers into the fabric of the school (Dogutas, 2008; Finn, 2006; Finn et al., 2005; Italiano, 2001; James, Logan, & Davis, 2011; Petersen, 2008; Vancleave, 2008). If you read any of the statistics at the beginning of this chapter, it should be apparent why SROs are in school buildings. They are there not only to preserve the peace, but also to provide support to troubled students by building rapport with them, serving as empathic listeners, and eliciting information. As such they are excellent conduits to provide information to school officials that might not otherwise be forthcoming (James, Logan, & Davis, 2011). Because many SROs, such as officer Davis whom you are about to meet, have Crisis Intervention Team training to deal with the mentally ill and emotionally disturbed, they make excellent first-line interventionists—particularly when the presence of an authority figure is needed with out-of-control students (James, Logan, & Davis, 2011). We strongly urge that human service workers and school administrators incorporate these police officers as part of a comprehensive pupil personnel services team that deals with violent and potentially violent students, because what they do works (Johnson, 1999). Meet School Resource and Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officer Scott Davis of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Police Department (S. Davis, personal communication, February 18, 2007). Officer Davis is responsible for policing a high school, a middle school, and three elementary schools. Officer Davis’s day starts with roll call at 6 a.m. He patrols the neighborhood and keeps an eye out for people or activities that don’t belong and other potential problems. This past month one of those problems included a very large gang fight that brought a number of police officers to the scene to break up the melee. Because those involved are “his kids,” he takes a personal interest in the incident. He follows up with those who were arrested and looks for any others who might have been involved. Occasionally during the day he will hop in his cruiser and look for truants. He spends about 75 percent of his time at the high school and 20 percent at the middle school, with drop-in visits to his three elementary schools. His first task of the day is to meet with the high school principal in the morning, go over any potential problems that might be occurring before school, and greet the students as they come in the front door. Parents come to his office to talk about problems their kids are having. During the day he checks out a number of students who have been having problems and promotes his Boy Scout Police Explorer program. At first glance his job appears pretty humdrum, but what isn’t apparent is that Officer Davis is putting his considerable CIT skills to use every day with “hum-drum” stuff and using the same skills when things are boiling over. Laura is 17 years old and a runaway. A social worker has been called to the school and is attempting to take her back to a bad home situation. Officer Davis has personal knowledge of the home because he has responded to a disturbance call there. Laura’s mother is a drug addict and long gone from the home. Laura tried to hit her father with a brick in one argument, so it is clear that home is not workable. As Officer Davis makes the scene, tensions are rising between Laura and the social worker, who is threatening to have Laura arrested. Officer Davis: (in a calm but authoritative voice) All right, let’s just everybody cool off! First off, you can’t have her arrested for a status offense. It’s clear home isn’t working real well, so Laura, let’s you and me go to my office and talk about what’s going on and what you think needs to happen. As Laura explains her situation, Officer Davis asks numerous open-ended questions to allow her to ventilate. He finds out she has a drinking problem, but only occasionally uses others drugs. Home is intolerable, but she does come to school. He also finds out she is bipolar but not taking her medication because of the side effects. Officer Davis: Okay, let’s try this. How about going to the crisis center with me. I’ve got some friends there who might be able to help both in regard to the medication and a place to stay. It may not be exactly what you want, but it beats going home and running away again, ’cause that doesn’t seem to be working real well for you. I’ll stay there with you and see what they can do. How about it? Laura: Hey! You’re kinda different. Most cops push people around. Okay. Officer Davis takes her to the crisis center, where she is evaluated and indeed prescribed different medication. She is also placed in a short-term foster home until her medication can be regulated. Laura: (A month later, in school, waves to Officer Davis.) Hey! Remember me? Officer Davis: Sure, Laura. How are things going? Laura: Not real great, but I’m getting by. I went back home. The old man and I are sorta getting along. Officer Davis: Hey! You’re here, aren’t you! Best place you can be! Here you’ve got options. The more you’re here, the less you’re at home. Thought about any after-school activities or sports? Get your grades up, and pretty soon the only time you are at home is to eat and sleep. Officer Davis enthusiastically reinforces Laura for making it to school. Laura may not be a huge success story, but at least she is in school, has made contact with somebody, and feels like somebody is really interested in her. These are little victories in the everyday grind of working in a school, but added up they can win wars for hearts and minds in working with troubled kids. But Officer Davis’s life is about to take an exciting turn, and we will return to him later in the chapter. Guidance Programs. Passive, lecture-based guidance programs that target fear arousal, moral appeal, and self-esteem building have not proven to be highly effective (Gottfredson, Gottfredson, & Skroban, 1998) in dealing with gangs or bullying. Active guidance programs that provide direct student involvement through modeling, role play, and behavioral rehearsal in areas such as anger management, bullying, conflict resolution, and peer mediation are more helpful in tackling gang and bullying issues (Beane, 1999; Coloroso, 2003; Davis & Davis, 2003; DuRant et al., 1996; Embry et al., 1996; Feindler & Scalley, 1998; Gottfredson, Gottfredson, & Skroban, 1998; Hausman, Pierce, & Briggs, 1996; Hazler, 1996; Horne, Bartolomucci, & Newman-Carson, 2003; Larson, 1994; Lupton-Smith et al., 1996; Sexton-Radek, 2004). To be effective, these programs must not be a one-shot session but should have continuous behavioral rehearsal and feedback sessions built into them. They must also have clear, easily implemented practices, be intense, and continue long enough with follow-up sessions to reinforce and change some very resistant behaviors in both victims and victimizers (Gottfredson, Gottfredson, & Skroban, 1998; Sullivan, 2011; Willard, 2007; Zins et al., 1994). Peer Counseling/Peer Mediation. One of the very worst approaches is to use peer crisis workers who are gang members or bullies, or for the crisis worker to attempt to run homogeneous counseling groups composed entirely of gang members or bullies (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, pp. 107–110). The gang members or bullies will take over the group. However, there is some evidence that heterogeneous counseling groups, those in which students are chosen from a representative cross-section of the ethnic, social, and economic strata of the school, are useful in helping gang members look at alternative solutions and develop new behaviors. There is also some evidence that a peer counseling/leader program that provides mentoring, tutoring, and support functions keeps at-risk and marginalized students out of trouble and in school (Allen, 1996; Cohen, Kulik, & Kulik, 1982; Fatum & Hoyle, 1996; Scruggs, Mastropieri, & Richter, 1985). Peer mediation (Cassinerio & Lane-Garon, 2006; Day-Vines et al., 1996; Schrumpf, Crawford, & Bodine, 1997) is another approach that uses students to deal with other students who have anger problems. While it may seem that the last thing a gang member or bully would be willing to submit to is peer mediation, it should be remembered that peer pressure and the need to conform exert a tremendous amount of pressure on all students. Further, if a student is unwilling to submit to peer mediation, he or she is ratcheting up the consequences by essentially saying, “I am not willing to try to work this out.” Institutional use of these programs should start in elementary schools and be continuously carried through middle and high schools so there is a clear, consistent, and longitudinal approach to providing support to alienated, angry, and disenfranchised students. In fact, elementary schools are the best place to stop bullying, harassment, prejudice, and other forms of problem behavior. Anger Management. A variety of anger management techniques have been developed to work with adolescents and children (Davis, 2004; Feindler & Weisner, 2006; Nelson, Finch, & Ghee, 2006; Smith, Larson, & Nuckles, 2006). Most of these approaches involve skill training and behavior rehearsal in prosocial behaviors and teaching students cognitive techniques that cool off their hot cognitions about stressful situations. While anger management approaches are effective in reducing abusive verbal and physical responses (Humphrey & Brooks, 2006; Rosenberg, 2004; Sharp & McCallum, 2005; Smith, Larson, & Nuckles, 2006), the problem is their pervasiveness and the environmental variables from both the home and the street that oftentimes see control of anger as weakness instead of strength. After-School and Community Outreach Programs. As Goldstein and Kodluboy (1998, p. 126) state, “Playing on a basketball team means you are not stealing a car while you’re at the game, but it does not prevent you from stealing a car before or after the game.” Research indicates that although such after-school programs may have recreational value, they are not highly effective in delinquency reduction. However, programs such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America that have a comprehensive curriculum integrating recreation with academic and social skill building, and career and personal counseling, do have high potential for stopping delinquency and reducing gang activity (Sherman et al., 1997). Schools. Schools and school districts are not without culpability in the growth and development of gangs, bullying, and violence. Megaschools and megadistricts limit many students’ participation in the academic and extracurricular activities of the school; because of the large numbers of students and the criteria that restrict who can participate, relatively few students in very large schools do take part in such activities as band or sports or even the chess team (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, pp. 21–22). Schools can play an active role in the prevention and intervention of gang activity. Schools need to set a number one priority of inclusiveness, nurturance, school as community, and the philosophy that no student is left behind either academically and socially (Cypress & Green, 2002). This concept is particularly important in schools where heterogeneity (diversity) of race and culture is the norm. Fairness and consistency for everybody, with open communication among stakeholders, are essential. Communication flows not only outward from the administration but inward to them. There must be fair rules and clear sanctions that are enforced evenly in school (Goldstein & Kodluboy, 1998, p. 22). There should be an expectation of success. The total philosophy of the system, starting in kindergarten and working its way up through high school, should not be “If you graduate,” but “When you graduate” (Allen, 1996). Gangs grow in a vacuum. A school is asking for trouble if it has unmonitored areas, such as parking lots and bathrooms; dismisses rumors about planned violence or weapons, drugs, or other contraband brought onto school grounds; excuses the violent behavior of “good kids”; or sees intervention in any of the foregoing areas as “not my job” (Dykeman, 1999; Remboldt, 1994). A school reduces violence when its staff and teachers have high expectations, care about and are involved with their students in inclusive ways, enforce rules and procedures, maintain buildings and keep classrooms neat and clean, and believe it’s everyone’s job to do so (Stephens, 1997). School safety goes beyond high-tech security systems. School safety is a sense of not only physical well-being but psychological well-being as well. Schools can maintain or take back their turf when they cooperatively develop mission statements, share decisions about school policies, maintain buildings and remove graffiti, organize gang awareness and prevention programs, promote parental and student involvement, allow zero tolerance of bullying, harassment, or gang recruitment, and have school authorities that declare, “This is our turf, not yours” (Blauvelt, 1998; Brock, Sandoval, & Lewis, 1996). Instead of asking, “How do I know which students will shoot next?” the question might be, “What is the faculty doing to build quality relationships with students and open lines of communication, and to develop the type of climate that will foster a wholesome sense of self in each individual as well as respect for others?” (Cypress & Green, 2002). But preventing gang growth and violence is a task that is much too great for a single school counselor, social worker, psychologist, teacher, or principal—or even a school system. The Community. It takes everybody in the community working as a team to combat gangs. Cooperation with other agencies such as the courts, corrections, probation, parole, mental health, public assistance, and housing is crucial. Civic and religious organizations must provide personnel and financial support. City and county government must be willing to put in place ordinances that say there is zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and back it up with law and code enforcement (Bemak & Keys, 2000; Miller, Martin, & Schamess, 2003; Schaefer-Schiumo & Ginsberg, 2003). Louvre (2008) makes a compelling argument for integrating community action in school crises. She is puzzled why there is so little outrage over the 97 percent of child murders that occur outside of school walls every year. Louvre argues persuasively that rebuilding trust and a sense of community in a school after a crisis requires the total participation of the community. That is what SARA (scanning, analysis, response, and assessment; Eck & Spelman, 1987), the Justice Department’s model for combating gangs, is about. SARA is not about getting rid of gangs in one day. It is about little victories, such as getting loiterers off school property and cleaning up graffiti. It gets all of the stakeholders in having a safe community involved in continuous and ongoing linkages that set goals and generate plans to achieve the continuous little victories that make SARA so effective. Turf guarding and political boundaries have no place in a fight to eradicate gangs (Roth, 2000). This approach benefits communities by not letting gangs gain a further foothold in the community, resulting in improved performance by students who went to school in fear each day; decreased teacher stress and burnout; decreased need for security staff/equipment; fewer injuries and lives lost; and most important, renewed freedom in the school and the community. You can find further information about SARA on this book’s website (www.cengage.com/counseling/james). Bullying Probably no other topic has received as much attention in the school counseling literature and at conferences in the past 10 years as face-to-face bullying and, more recently, cyberbullying (Burnham, Wright, & Houser, 2010; Chamberlin, 2006; Holladay, 2010; Paterson, 2010; Sabella, 2010; Suniti Bhat, Chang, & Linscott, 2010)—its causes (Crothers & Levinson, 2004; Espelage, Bosworth, & Simon, 2000), effects (Carney, 2008; Sullivan, 2011; Willard, 2007), and intervention strategies (Bauman, 2011; Burnham, 2011; Burrow-Sanchez et al., 2011; Leo, 2010; Newman, Horne, & Bartolomucci, 2000; Paterson, 2011; Ratts, Ayers, & Bright, 2009; Saufler, 2010; Sullivan, 2011; Willard, 2007). That is particularly true with regard to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) students (Callahan, 2001; Jackson & Harding, 2010; Jones Farrelly & Robles-Fernandez, 2011; McCollum, 2010; Windmeyer, 2009), who have little power or support systems in most K–12 buildings. The crisis dimensions this problem has taken on culminated in a White House Conference on Bullying in March 2011. That conference sought to establish replicable training and intervention programs that were cost effective and time manageable for teachers already stretched thin (Munsey, 2011). The fact that a number of elementary, middle, and high school students have committed suicide because of bullying and cyberbulling in the past few years has gotten the attention of the federal government and caused the Department of Education to assist in bully prevention. In December 2010 a technical assistance best practice memo highlighting comprehensive state antibullying laws was sent to state school officers and governors. The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education and the Department of Justice are working together and will vigorously pursue complaints of bullying and harassment. This information and much more is available at www.stopbullyng. Finally, the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools will offer competitive grants to measure safety by surveying students and then providing federal funds those schools identified through as having the greatest need of intervention. Schools will also be required to make the “safety scores” public so they can be held accountable for performance in providing a safe environment (Jennings, 2011). Bullying and intimidation affect large numbers of students. One study that found that 77 percent of junior and senior high school students in a Midwestern United States school survey reported being a victim of bullies (Espelage & Swearer, 2003). In 2007, 32 percent of U.S. students ages 12–18 reported having been bullied at school that year. In this survey, 21 percent of students said they had been made fun of; 18 percent reported being the subject of rumors; 11 percent said they were pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on; 6 percent said they were threatened with harm; 5 percent said they were excluded from activities on purpose; and 4 percent each said that someone had tried to make them do things they did not want to do or that their property had been destroyed on purpose (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Bullying has been around for a long time. Why has it now taken on such a preeminent place in the media and the minds of the public? Bullying behavior can affect the physical and psychological health of those who are frequently bullied and those students who bully their peers at an early age (Batsche & Knoff, 1994). It can be direct, such as hitting, kicking, or pushing a person. It can be verbal, such as malicious teasing, threatening, or taunting. It can be indirect or relational, where the idea is to damage relationships or social standing through exclusion (Bauman, 2011, p. 18). Langman (2009) defines bullying as having three components: First, the bully has more power than the victim, because of larger size, greater strength, or greater numbers (clique or gang). Second, bullying involves intimidation through threats, to the point that victims are made to fear for their safety. Third, bullying involves a pattern of behavior, not a onetime push (p. 12). Bullies are proactive aggressors who use aggression methodically, subtly, and with increasing intensity until they achieve their desired goal of personal gain of some kind. Bullying is preplanned and calculated to instill fear and gain control over others with little remorse for its effects on them (Hubbard et al., 2001; McAdams & Schmidt, 2007; Vitaro & Brendgen, 2005; Vitaro, Brendgen, & Tremblay, 2002). An entire school can be affected by systematic bullying behaviors. If left unchecked, an atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and low morale, along with the academic and behavioral problems that go with a hostile work environment, can create a negative atmosphere for all students (Hoover & Hazler, 1991). Finally, if left unchecked, bullying as a form of aggression can lead to lethal behavior from either the bully or the bullied. Cyberbullying Cyberbulling, simply defined, means using technology to harass, humiliate, or threaten someone (Holladay, 2010). Cyberbullying is different from face-to face bullying. In face-to-face bullying the effects are immediately known, and the victim knows who the bully is and who his or her supporters are. Cyberbullying can be far more insidious because the bully can remain unknown. Effects can also be more disastrous because the messages can go to an audience literally in the millions (Bauman, 2011, p. 19). There are eight types of cyberbullying (Bauman, 2011, p. 57; Willard, 2007, p. 2): Flaming refers to angry offensive language. “You are a shit-brained hootchy mama slut.” Harassment is the technology version of discriminatory or hostile behavior toward someone based on gender, race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. “Jay is a limp-wristed fag gimpy Yid.” Denigration is sending or posting defaming information about someone. “Jennifer Sonstegarrd is screwing every boy on the hockey team … and the coach too!” Masquerading is using someone else’s identity to send messages that are rude and inappropriate. “Leslie, you stink! Literally! Get some feminine hygiene products. Signed Phewwwie! Joey” (a guy Leslie is interested in, but so is Devonne who actually sent the e-mail). Outing or trickery is a way of getting people to reveal personal information that might then be used against them. “Leslie, I really have been thinking you’re the fox of the history class. I wonder if you’d like to go out for a pizza and movie Saturday night. INTERESTED A LOT, JOEY.” When Leslie replies, Devonne then puts it out on the net: “Leslie thinks Joey is going out with HER on Saturday night. How delirious and out of touch with reality is she? Social exclusion is a means of deliberately excluding someone from a buddy list, chat room, discussion board, or game. “How many of you want Leslie off the discussion board and out of the game? Everybody who does, vote “aye.” Cyberstalking is the electronic version of pursuing a person who is not interested in the personal attention he or she is receiving, but receiving it anyway. “Don’t think I don’t know when you come on the discussion board because I do, and I am going to be here watching and listening.” Cyberthreats are clearly meant to evoke fear and imply that danger is imminent. “It’ll be dark by the time you get out of cheerleader practice and this is the night you always walk home. Have a nice night … and … oh … I’ll be watching … and waiting.” The crisis worker’s intervention with these bullies is difficult and fraught with legal and ethical issues. Some school counselors and other human service workers in schools have set up websites where students can contact them to deal with bullying and other personal issues in the virtual world that students inhabit. However, because of fear of sexual predators, the Missouri legislature attempted to make it illegal for any person employed by a school to have an individual dialogue with a student over the net. A judge ruled against the law as unconstitutional, but it is a slippery slope and workers can put themselves at risk legally and professionally. The better road to follow, at least at this point, is having clear district policies in place in regard to the use of the Internet (Willard, 2007). Those policies should include the following (pp. 195–265): 1. A cyberbullying/cyberthreat and face-to-face-review policy for threatening materials sent over the Internet or hard copies found at school 2. School actions and options that are taken in regard to misuse of the Internet by students 3. Incident and report forms that track and record behavior so that a chain of continuity can be built (see the TASSLE form later in this chapter) 4. A comprehensive district plan to assess cyber use and misuse 5. Student needs assessment 6. Teacher needs assessment 7. District use policy for the Internet and agreement signed by students and parents that includes netiquette guidelines, to be given to and discussed with both students and parents To sum this up, just doing this and calling it “done” won’t work. There has to be initiative across the board within the whole community. The school’s philosophy and policy have to fit with their antibullying efforts or it is useless. There also has to be regular evaluation of the program and updating of it or it will wither and die (Burnham, 2011; Sullivan, 2011). Individual Intervention Intervention with bullies first and foremost should include a strict policy against harassment and intimidation (Kerr, 2009, p. 112) and that policy should be clearly spelled out with no loopholes (McAdams & Schmidt, 2007; Willard, 2007). Once a bully has been identified, Sullivan (2011) proposes three approaches to remediation. First is punishment, which can range from dealing with the criminal justice system to expulsion, detention, or other disciplinary proced r