Teachers also are making more reports because their union wants a crackdown on threats and attacks against its members, Hornbeck said. Hornbeck has spent his first two years reforming the school bureaucracy, reorganizing school curricula and setting new teaching standards. Now, he is tackling school security and discipline. The district plans to distribute new school safety guidelines early next year, and is working on an overhaul of student suspension policies. More metal scanners are available to detect weapons.
Surveillance cameras give about a dozen high schools extra eyes and ears.
Schools also teach how to resolve conflicts and use students and teachers as mediators, he said. The No. 1 concern of parents and students is one of safety. The district has been telling principals for three years to report all violence or disruption, but critics say not all of them do. Sarah Gilliam, an administrator with Parents Union for Public Schools, said she frequently gets complaints of incidents at schools, only to be told that the district has no record of the case. It makes them look bad, so they just don't tell.