National Safe Schools Week is sponsored by a variety of national organizations including PAX Real Solutions to Gun Violence, an organization dedicated to protecting kids and their families from gun violence. There are also a variety of related initiatives and activities that schools and agencies can use to help raise awareness surrounding this critical issue.
The Problem of School Violence
According to the Safe Schools Week website, “Each month, over 1 million students across America take a weapon to school.” The reasons may be varied. Perhaps students feel the need to protect themselves or their friends. Or maybe students have unresolved conflicts they don’t know how to solve any other way. Whatever the reason, the threat of violence in American schools is real.
School Violence Prevention
The Safe Schools Week website also states that, “In 81% of school shootings, the attacker tells someone about his or her plans first.” This means that many of these tragic incidents of violence may be preventable if students can be encouraged to report these threats when they happen.
PAX’s SPEAK UP campaign encourages kids to do just that. Their national hotline, 1-866-SPEAK-UP is available 24 hours a day for kids to anonymously report weapon threats. This is a valuable resource for those students who may not be comfortable with the visibility that may come with reporting such situations to school or local authorities. One of the missions of Safe Schools Week is to make students aware of the existence of this hotline.
Safe Schools Week Activities and Resources
The Safe Schools Week website provides a host of activity ideas that schools and organizations can use to increase student awareness surrounding weapons threats and violence. There is a downloadable “Event and Activities Planning Guide” which includes facts and statistics, event ideas, samples, and suggestions for promoting your activities in the local press. Some event ideas include creating bulletin boards, holding a poster contest, and creating an email campaign. Activities can be simple or more complex depending on the time and resources your school or agency has available.
There are also links to powerful public service announcements that may be appropriate for your students to watch. These PSA’s drive home the importance of reporting weapons threats but presenting two parallel situations: one where a threat of violence was reported, and one where a threat of violence was not reported, and describes the dramatic difference in consequences between the two. Students may also be interested in entering the Nationwide Creative Expression Contest. Students are asked to submit entries as an essay, song, drawing, or in another creative format in response to one of three given questions about school violence.
For many students, the threat of school violence is both real and frightening. Activities such as these not only raise awareness, but help to empower kids to make their schools safer places.
[Quotes and information from Safe Schools Week, October 2008].
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