BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ALEXANDRIA -- Northern Kentucky school officials are being very clear: Students making violent threats will not be tolerated.
The latest example comes from Campbell County Middle School, where a boy reportedly told three other students he was going to kill them.
The student was suspended April 24 after two of his peers reported the alleged threat. The incident apparently started as dispute in the students' neighborhood. School officials are discussing further disciplinary action, which could include expulsion. "It was a threatening situation, and -- in light of everything going on in the schools in Paducah, Arkansas and Pennsylvania -- we can't take these kinds of things lightly," said Bill Voelker, director of instruction for Campbell County Schools.
The Campbell school board and others in Northern Kentucky are setting new standards. Threats will be taken seriously, and disciplinary action will follow.
Why the strict rules? Peers at each of the high schools where shootings occurred said the students who used guns made threats or talked about what they were going to do before the killings.
Administrators here said they want to heed all warning signs. And the Kentucky General Assembly created a law last month that will help districts pay for safe environments. The school safety bill will establish a center to study the problems associated with violence and train school employees to deal with them.
Principals will be required to report to police any acts of violence on school property, and teachers and other school personnel will be given increased access to juvenile criminal records.
Even before the law, Northern Kentucky schools were taking action.
In Covington, the district requires all students and staff on its secondary campus (grades 7-12) to wear ID tags. Middle school and high school students must use transparent book bags. A security officer and other disciplinary personnel are at the secondary campus. School doors are kept locked, and most campuses are behind fences.
Efforts are less obvious at Newport schools, where the emphasis is on counseling and prevention through peer mediation. The strategy has meant a drop in suspensions and in the number of confrontational issues.
And at Beechwood Schools, the district focuses on teaching students to respect their peers and to have the skills to solve problems without getting into confrontations.
"We've had threats and violent acts that we've dealt with," Mr. Voelker said. "But this is such a new type of thing. Kids would make threats, and you knew they were idle threats. Now you have to consider that anything is possible."
