Sunday, March 23, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
For generations, school has been a safe place to be.
But for 16-year-old Jessie Fairchild, who attends Cheyenne High, it's not.
"I don't feel safe, because there are only two cops (on the campus), and they're always out talking to each other," Jessie said. "We have a security camera system and the place where the monitors are set up in the office, nobody watches it. There needs to be more discipline and a bigger punishment (for students who commit crimes)."
Changing societal values and a booming population in schools nationwide have left the once-idyllic setting of the schoolyard less of a safe haven for children than it used to be.
A byproduct of the growth in Clark County is an increase in crime, not only on the streets but on campuses.
According to the Clark County School District Police Department, 1,050 crimes, 48 of which were dangerous weapons-related charges, were committed on campuses from Jan. 1 to March 18.
Those crimes included sexual assaults, drug charges, assaults, burglaries and robberies.
Most alarming to officers and school administrators, however, are the weapons-related incidents.
Students as young as 10 have had knives and guns taken from them, school police sources said. In the first few weeks of the year, more than a dozen guns were confiscated from students on campus.
So just how safe are children while in the care of educators?
According to Superintendent Brian Cram, they're a lot safer than they would be on the streets.
"Look at the statistics," Cram said. "Look at the amount of crime in our buildings compared to the crime in the neighborhoods around schools.
"The danger is, by far, less in schools than anywhere in the community. Students are much safer in school than they are in a number of other social settings."
While Cram said crime on campus "mirrors the society around us" and naturally spills onto school grounds, he emphasized that the district is aggressive in dealing with it.
Cram said the presence of school police on campus and devices such as security cameras in hallways contribute to a safer environment than what some students face in their own neighborhoods.
"We're not going to sit back and hope it gets well on its own," he said.
That's little consolation to George Dinwiddie, who has five family members who attend Rancho High School.
Although the students declined to be interviewed, Dinwiddie said a day doesn't go by that they don't complain to him about trouble on campus.
The stories he is told about threats, guns and knives hidden in handbags and backpacks make Dinwiddie uneasy.
"Do they feel safe? No. They're victims of physical threats and they don't feel protected by staff or faculty," Dinwiddie said. "I'm afraid for the kids in the whole school district because of the disregard and the lack of response (to complaints) about the violence."
Cram takes issue with that statement.
Not only does he feel the school district is tackling the problem head-on, he's confident the school district's police force is doing a good job.
"Our police department has improved its competency and has become very well-trained," Cram said. "We have a very strong and effective police department. Our students are safer in schools than in the general population."
Cram dismisses the idea of installing metal detectors in the schools, saying it wouldn't be practical because "there are so many entrances."
The only way to make metal detectors effective, he said, is to put big fences around all schools and make every campus a closed one.
That's not an acceptable option, though, because Cram said he doesn't want to run a school "as if it is a prison."
Cram said while he is disturbed by any crime committed on campus, he is most disturbed by the presence of weapons and violence.
"The (School) Board has taken a no-nonsense approach to violent crime," he said. "The zero-tolerance approach has been helpful."
School Board member Lois Tarkanian agreed with Cram's assessment of schools mirroring society's ills.
"There are too many guns and knives being brought onto our campuses, and I think we're working very hard to deal with that," she said.
Tarkanian explained that any student caught with a gun or knife faces an automatic suspension from school.
She also stressed that parents must be aware of the problems at their child's campus.
"Parents must understand it's happening at their school," Tarkanian said. "It's at every school. It's in the affluent areas as well. I was shocked with some of the things I learned about."
Phil Gervasi, president of the district's Police Officers Association, said some administrators don't always notify the police when a crime occurs.
"The administration feels it's a reflection on them," Gervasi said. "No. We're a reflection of society.
"You can't prevent something by hiding it. The administration feels if there is a problem, they're not doing their job. They feel if they keep their heads in the sand, it will go away."
Cram said he agrees that school crime should be made public because "we should not be in the business of attempting to hide things."
Crime doesn't appear to be going away in schools anytime soon.
Contributing to it, Gervasi and gang officers said, is a growing gang presence on campuses.
And school police say they are seeing younger students imitate the dress, the walk and the talk of gang members.
"We're now going into generations" with gang affiliation, Gervasi said. "It's become a family tradition."
The "family tradition" is a second generation of gang members whose parents have ties to Los Angeles-area black and Hispanic gangs.
Added to the mix, school police said, is an increase in skinhead and Aryan Nation gangs, which they say are most prominent at Durango High School.
School Board President Susan Brager represents District F, where Durango is located. She was just recently made aware of the white supremist gang presence at the high school through a conversation she had with Chief of Police Jack Lazzarotto.
Brager intends within 10 days to research the possibility of a hate group on campus and make a decision on what action, if any, to take.
She hopes to make more anti-gang education available to students in the hopes of persuading them not to join gangs. If, however, students are found to be members of any gang, "they need to be dismissed," she said.
"I don't like any type of gangs," Brager said. "It's real important that children should be in a safe zone and this (gang activity) should not be permitted."
Although school police contend that gang members only target members of rival gangs and recruit students from their own neighborhoods, some students take issue with that statement.
Jerry and Jean Fairchild were so alarmed about the violence by suspected gang members directed at their 14-year-old daughter, Jackie, that they took her out of Swainston Middle School in January and enrolled her in a private school.
And now they're considering removing their son, Jessie, from Cheyenne and enrolling him in an out-of-state military academy for the same reason.
Jackie and Jessie said they didn't feel safe at their schools. Jackie was jumped and beaten while attending Swainston, and Jessie said fights break out on his campus "every day."
Jerry Fairchild said his daughter and a friend were jumped, beaten and chased through the school bus-loading area to a Texaco station about a mile away. The gas station manager called Fairchild to alert him.
"I went back to the school and asked (school officials), 'How could this happen?' " Fairchild recalled. "All they said was, 'Well, we didn't see it.' Now, that's a problem."
Jessie agreed.
"More guns and knives are brought into school than they know about," Jessie said. It scares him, "because I don't want to get stabbed or anything."
While Jackie was at Swainston, her father said she adopted the "messy" style of dress popular with her peers -- baggy, oversized clothing associated with gangs -- simply to look tough.
"If they (classmates) thought she was tough, they'd leave her alone," Fairchild said.
Jackie, a pretty, petite girl, enrolled in modeling classes and Fairchild said he laid down the law on her style of dress.
"I told her, 'If you're going into modeling, I don't want you dressing like a hood.' But Jackie said she had to dress like that or the other girls would pick on her.
"Well, one day she wore a black dress to school and she looked really nice. They started picking on her immediately, called her a 'whore.' That was the last straw."
The bottom line, most agree, is that parents need to be more involved in their children's lives.
"A great percentage of the problems start in the home," Brager said. "Parents have their children five or six years before they start school, and if they see things being handled with yelling and violence, then that's what they come to school with.
"I don't think there's a child out there who doesn't want to do good, but sometimes our pasts are difficult. It takes all of us, and the commitment is there from the school district."
Added Tarkanian: "Parents must hold their children accountable and they must hold themselves accountable."
That's something the Fairchild family agrees with. Sixteen-year-old Jessie summed up the problem:
"They don't care about their kids anymore," he said of other parents. "Everybody's always staying out too late and stuff. They're just not disciplined."
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