They wanted to focus on prevention as well as provide mental health and student-family intervention services.
A federal funding source - through the U.S. departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services - gave the idea for a Safe Schools program the nod with a grant of
$2.5 million over three years, and Missoula became one of 54 sites, out of 477 applicants nationally, chosen to receive the federal dollars.
The collaboration of agencies anchored by Missoula County Public Schools have operated the Safe Schools program in the Missoula community for about a year now.
Ten local agencies provide school-based services to Missoula students from preschool to graduation and to their families. Eight mental health workers serve 10 elementary buildings and two middle schools.
What's significant about that, said Marianne Moon, Safe Schools coordinator, is in the past, elementary buildings hadn't been staffed with counseling services.
Safe Schools also helps coordinate bullying-prevention programs at Rattlesnake Middle and Lowell Elementary schools. The programs aim to raise awareness about bullying and train teachers, parents and students on how to stop bullies and support their victims.
The school district has established an anonymous tip hot line for students to alert authorities to potential school violence. School officials check it twice daily.
Out of three potential threats of violence reported in the past month, School Superintendent Mary Vagner said two came from students reporting possible risks to parents.
"We feel we've upped the level of awareness among kids," Vagner said.
Administration and the school board have developed alternative education strategies for troubled students who no longer can be schooled in the regular classrooms.
Building designs are being changed so school officials have a better view of who is entering and leaving school structures. Brick walls are giving way to windows near entryways. Landscape crews remove shrubs above 3 feet and under 7 feet around buildings.
According to the Safe Schools plan, in the fall of 2001, program officials will focus on increasing parent participation and parent training programs and identify ways to increase communications with parents.
The parent piece of the picture is already being developed at Family Basics and Women's Opportunity & Resource Development Inc., a player in the Safe Schools program.
"Most of this stuff traces back to the family," said Barbara Riley, WORD program director. "That's what made us think we should do something."
Her agency offers parenting education that parallels information students at Lowell Elementary and Rattlesnake Middle schools are learning through a bullying-prevention program.
"Often, something is going on at home that causes them to bully or they see anger not being handled appropriately at home," Riley said.
Riley and her staff work with parents on issues such as anger and child conduct. They help parents become better role models and in diffusing their anger.
Sometimes the problem isn't as much the parent as it is something going on with the kid, Riley said. In those cases, they teach parents how to set boundaries and teach their kids to manage their anger.
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