Bellingham schools combat violence

By Maggie Huffer

Last year, weapons confiscated in the Bellingham School District more than doubled since 1996, according to statistical data collected by the Bellingham School District.

In 1998, Bellingham teachers, principals and security officers collected 41 weapons: a handgun, 28 knives or daggers and 12 other weapons, such as chains, pieces of metal or baseball bats with nails. This number is up 141 percent from the 17 weapons retrieved in 1996.

The school district is required to keep track of the number of students found with any sort of weapon on school property. This makes it is easy to see the numbers increase over the years, said Bill Attebery, director of student services for the Bellingham School District. Attebery said the reason numbers have increased is because there is little tolerance regarding weapons in Bellingham schools.

"We have a zero tolerance policy. The schools have really torqued down, tightened up on the no tolerance policy," Attebery said.

Last year, a Sehome High School student was expelled for having a 3 and a half-inch knife down the side of his pant leg.

If a student is found with a weapon, under state law, students are immediately expelled and arrested by the Bellingham Police Department.

Resource officers are on duty all day at middle schools and high schools have bike patrol officers on their campuses throughout the day, Jamison said.

Middle schools and high schools have different methods of teaching anti-violence.

"We have a DARE police officer that comes once a week for about six weeks to talk to us about drugs and violence," said Martina Kartman, a seventh grader at Fairhaven Middle School. "We are taught that violence equals violence and that it won't help us."

Problems arise more within middle schools than high schools and we do not see a problem in elementary schools, Attebery said.

Middle school kids are just more interested, more fascinated with mechanisms and weapons. They just play with them more," Attebery said. "Usually they just bring them to school accidentally."

Attebery said middle school children bring weapons to school because they are most likely in their bags from the weekends. Usually, it's the boys who have small pocketknives, and want to carry them around because they are new to them, Attebery said. "Most children do not bring them to school with malicious intent," he said.

However, high school students intentionally carry weapons either to protect themselves or to intimidate others, said Nancy Barga, Sehome High School assistant principal. Barga, head of the security department at Sehome said some kids feel they need protection, "They feel they need something to back them up," she said.

Barga said she already this year collected a three and a half-inch knife, a broken cue stick taped like a club, chains and numerous other knives.

"It seems like the weapons just keep getting uglier with more freaky instances and more bizarre things happening," Barga said. "Luckily, the three and a half-inch knife was reported by a student."

High school administrators rely on tips from students and usually most weapons reported to school officials are by students, Barga said. "We have to rely on their tips. They are important to us."

Jamison shares the same point of view. "Usually students are going to know first," he said. It is not unusual for troubled adolescence to say they are planning to do something radical. They will talk about it around their peers, but not around school officials and that is why kids should quickly speak out, he said.

"I can tell the groups that might have weapons, but I am not faced with them directly," Sehome ninth grader Michelle Heitmann said. "I would definitely report something though if I felt myself or others were in danger."

School has always been a place where students could be safe and now feelings of danger are left in student since the shootings in Littletown, Colo., Attebery said. "It's not a fear like ŒI'm going to get shot', just an overall fear."

Because of this fear Jamison said, "School officials are paying a lot closer attention to students feelings and activities. They are amazing. Once something happens it is reported immediately," he said.

In years past, Bellingham schools allowed people to pass in and out of their doors freely. It is no longer easy to enter a school without presenting reasons for your visit.

"When someone unusual enters our campus, they will most likely be approached by our head security guard," Barga said.

Both school officials and the Bellingham police department agree that kids, parents, teachers and police officials need to work to promote a nonviolent community, thus reducing the serious increase of weapons in schools.

Jamison said tolerance is the best and first thing we could change as a community. Jamison said tolerance begins in the family, parents and educators need to teach children that different is ok not just in education, but in life. "Whoever you are is who you are," he said.

Jamison said communication is the second step the community could work to change. "If someone has red hair and purple finger nails or dresses in black and has a tear on their face, they could be asking for help. We need to pay attention to that," Jamison said.

Jamison works along with the school district to try and find the center problem with weapons in schools. Throughout the years, Jamison has helped to develop several ideas as to why children behave the way they do.

Jamison said some kids are going to go for the 15 minutes of fame and parents, school faculty and police need to be ready for these situations to occur. "We need to teach kids that they can go to their parents," he said. Parents need to realize that each child is different and they need to be treated on an individual basis, Jamison said.