LAWRENCE: Violence, vandalism decreasing in schools

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   Incidents of violence and vandalism appear to be on the decline in the Lawrence Township public school district based on reports covering the first half of the 2011-12 school year, according to school district officials.
   School districts formerly reported the number of instances of violence and vandalism annually in October, but new state regulations require the districts to issue reports twice per year, said Superintendent of Schools Crystal Lovell.
   Although the report released to the school board Monday night covers September to December 2011, Dr. Lovell said that extrapolating the data shows an overall decline in the number of incidents, especially in the category of violence.
   ”If you take last year’s numbers and divide them in half, and for the most part, if you remove the 39 incidents of harassment, bullying and intimidation (from the ‘violence’ category), we are well under (the number of incidents) in most categories,” she said.
   There were 51 reported incidents of violence in the first reporting period, as compared to 32 incidents in the full year of reporting for 2010-11. But if the 37 instances of harassment, bullying and intimidation are removed, there were 14 incidents. Harassment, bullying and intimidation incidents have been removed from the “violence” category and placed in a separate category.
   There have been five reported incidents of vandalism in the first reporting period for 2011-12, as compared to six for 2010-11. Nine incidents of substance abuse were reported in 2010-11, but only two in the first reporting period.
   Weapons offenses amounted to one report in the first reporting period, and there were five incidents in 2010-11. A “weapons offense” could be a student who used a pen as a weapon, or it could be a pocketknife that fell out of a student’s backpack, Dr. Lovell said.
   The school district’s emphasis on character education is a contributing factor to the decline in the number of incidents of violence and vandalism, the superintendent said. Several of the schools have been named state or national schools of character.
   ”The students have become more aware and alert, and they are taking more responsibility for their environment. There is more focus on students’ behavior. They learn to respect each other and to respect others’ property (through the character education program),” Dr. Lovell said.