School-Family-Community Partnerships Focused on School Safety: The Baltimore Example

Working with the Fund for Educational Excellence and Johns Hopkins University, schools throughout Baltimore, Maryland, have formed the Baltimore School-Family-Community Partnership Program. Schools participating in this initiative plan and implement partnership activities that target specific school goals, including improved student safety. This article describes student safety activities initiated by Action Teams in three Baltimore Partnership schools. Further, it shares participant insights into the ways these programs provide urban public school youth with greater support in avoiding maladaptive behaviors, supply them with safe havens after school, and ensure that they can travel to and from school without harm. INTRODUCTION In our nation's states, cities, and neighborhoods, students exposure to and involvement in violence is increasing. Baltimore, Maryland is no exception. Between April 1, 1993, and March 31, 1994, 293 youth under the age of 20 were hospitalized for assaults in Baltimore. This number constitutes approximately 62% of the total number of hospitalizations for assaults among youth in the state of Maryland (Brownell, 1995). The violence that youth in Baltimore are exposed to is symptomatic of the increasingly distressed nature of their communities. Seventy-two neighborhoods in Maryland have been classified by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as severely distressed by virtue of their high levels of poverty, female-headed families, high school dropouts, unemployment, and reliance on welfare; 62 of these are in Baltimore City (Gouvis, 1995). Such distressed communities are often permeated with drug markets and drug-related violence. In 1996, for example, the Baltimore City Police Department (1996) reported processing 11,332 juvenile arrests. The five most common offenses were automobile theft (1,169), cocaine possession (1,035), possession of cocaine with intent to distribute (1,027), common assault (881), and marijuana possession (828). Further, 211 juveniles were charged with handgun-related offenses in 1996. The majority of these youth (168) were African American males between the ages of 14 and 15. While some of these arrests were for the use of handguns in violent offenses, most arrests (86) were for carrying a handgun. Although data is not available to explain why youth in Baltimore carry handguns, national studies indicate that protection against violent assault is a primary reason for juvenile gun possession. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (1997) reports that in a nationwide profile of juvenile gun possession and use, 70% of students who said they carried a gun said they did so to protect themselves from a perceived threat. These statistics indicate that for far too many youth in Baltimore and in the nation, exposure to, involvement in, and fear of violence is a familiar part of their daily existence. The statistics also emphasize the need for treatment programs that serve youth and families in violent situations, as well as prevention programs that assist youth and their families in avoiding violence. As one response to statistics such as those noted above, schools throughout Baltimore are working with families and communities to create safer environments in which children can live, learn, and grow. Many of these schools are members of the Baltimore SchoolFamily-Community Partnership Program. This program works with the Fund for Educational Excellence and the educational center at Johns Hopkins University to develop comprehensive school, family, and community partnerships in the Baltimore public schools. Through the program, member schools plan and implement school, family, and community partnership activities that target specific school goals, including improved student safety. This article describes the Baltimore program, discusses several partnership activities to improve student safety that have been planned by various schools in the program, and highlights activities in three of the schools that are working to ensure the safety of Baltimore's most valuable resource-its youth. …