SCHOOL SAFETY MEETINGS BEGIN

It doesn't take a violence prevention grant to focus on school safety.

Wednesday night was the first official WIN adult advisory meeting at
Ukiah High School. (There is also a student WIN advisory group.)

The Wildcat Intervention Network -- named after Ukiah High School's
mascot, the wildcat -- was created as the result of increasing
community concern about student comfort and safety on the high
school campus. The purpose of WIN is to address school safety and
violence prevention issues identified by community and youth focus
groups and to improve both the actual safety and the perception of
safety at Ukiah High.

"The grant's not here and I am not going to give up. It doesn't cost
money to have you here," Principal Ken Montoya told the handful of
people working with him at a grass roots level to gather input and
discuss violence prevention strategies.

Ukiah Unified in March submitted a violence prevention grant
application to the California Department of Education requesting
$488,271 to be used for the WIN program. The district's request for
the grant was denied. Eventually a violence prevention grant will be
available again -- possibly as soon as February -- Montoya said,
noting the district plans to reapply.

Meanwhile, the monthly WIN meetings will continue.

In addition, Montoya said he plans to start an anonymous hotline for
high school students to report incidents regarding safety,
harassment, intimidation, drugs and so on.

"When an incident goes down, about 85 percent of the students there
are spectators; they know about it before us," Montoya said.

Ukiah High School already has a policy called "Break the Silence,"
where students can report incidents by slipping notes under the
school resource officer's door, or going directly to a campus
supervisor or administrator. The problem is, many students don't,
because they are afraid of being seen by their peers.

Ukiah Unified this year has also purchased a new ninth-grade
curriculum called "Too Good For Drugs and Violence."

Lastly, the WIN committee is looking into the Safe Ambassador
Program, Montoya said. The Safe Ambassador Program says, "You can be
the change. ... It trains kids on how to mediate situations and
diffuse any violence. It allows students to say, Chill,' stop it,'
or that's inappropriate,'" Montoya said, noting he will consult with
the student advisory group to help determine if students want the
program. "It would probably start with a cluster of students getting
trained," and expand from there, he said.

Yvonne Coren, a parent, and one of just eight people attending the
meeting, said she was there because she is "concerned that the high
school needs support from parents and the community to be a safer,
better place for kids to learn in."

Katherine Fengler, intervention specialist with Mendocino County
Public Health, Alcohol and Other Drug Programs attended the meeting
to "connect with other community members and parents to look at the
issues of violence on campus and (figure out) how to create a safe
place for everyone." Fengler will also be implementing the new
ninth-grade curriculum.

Suzanne Bentley, also with Public Health, attended the meeting
"primarily as a parent," she said. "My main concern is drug use on
campus, specifically marijuana, which seems to be being dealt with
in a very cavalier way. I've heard that kids ... many students, are
smoking on campus; that there are lockers filled with marijuana.
And, if there are locker checks the students know about them in
advance," Bentley said.

Former teacher and parent Benj Thomas said drugs aren't at the heart
of the issue, and schools shouldn't be expected to fix all the problems.

"I think the schools in our society are being asked to do way too
much," he said. "The criticism isn't about the schools, it's about
the fact that there is very little in the lives of most teenagers
that gives them meaning. The responsibility for changing that is not
up to the schools, it's up to the community as a whole," Thomas
said, noting that while it's important to teach community values in
school, that shouldn't be the only place.

Sharon Govern, also a parent, feels not only are schools an
instrumental part of the process, teachers, too, need to be more
involved in order to evoke change.

"Unless teachers play a strong role in this, talk the talk, walk the
walk, I don't think it will succeed," Govern said.

"Teachers are role models and need to be involved in the meetings,"
Coren said.

Ukiah High School is the largest school in Mendocino County. On a
daily basis there are more than 2,000 people on campus.

Increasing gang activity, alcohol and drug use, personal threats and
fighting are some of the areas of concern.

The next WIN adult advisory meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Oct. 25, in
the Ukiah High School library. School faculty, students, parents and
community members in general are encouraged to attend.