Schools are the one place where all of our children are assembled, and we have traditionally thought of them as safe havens. When violence occurs in schools the potential for widespread harm is all the greater. As Vermonters, we have no reason to believe we are immune to the various forms of school violence. Community-wide efforts are needed to help assure our children are safe at school.
School violence is a part of a larger societal problem.
To have a lasting impact, efforts to prevent violence must reflect the interrelationship among the school, families, and the larger community. This document has been developed to help individual communities understand the conditions under which school violence occurs and to offer a menu of approaches for them to consider. To help readers evaluate the various approaches and understand the merits of a multifaceted approach to school violence, some of the many causes of youth violence are described, either in the main text or in the appendices. Peer groups and gangs are not discussed directly in this document. Information about gang-related violence is often conflicting, and gang prevention programs have been less successful than general violence prevention programs.