Most experts agree that predicting, without error, which students will resort to violence is nearly impossible.
Some schools systems do have programs in place to spot trouble before it gets out of control.
However, former teacher and school counselor Peggy Sapphire of New Fairfield, Connecticut, thinks that, in many public schools, too many students are invisible. In all the afterthoughts of the tragic spate of public school killings during the last school year, none addresses the fact that public schools are not held responsible for truly knowing each and every student. The student killers, later identified by peers who knew all along of their depression and obsession with violence, were either distantly known or fully anonymous to school personnel. This is not a remarkable phenomena. The organizing principles of public schools say nothing about their responsibility to truly know each and every student in their charge.