School district outlines plan for dealing with guns

The issue of guns in schools has dogged Clark County Schools Superintendent Brian Cram, who plans to retire in the summer of 2000, since he took the top schools job in 1989.

In an interview with the Sun, Cram said that around the time he became superintendent, Clark County district officials began carefully analyzing other urban districts to gauge the problems they were having with guns in schools.

"We then, based on that, tried to anticipate what might happen to us and what we should do," Cram said.

Since then, the Clark County School District has increased its school police force, installed security cameras in high schools and several middle and elementary schools, and begun using metal detectors at some sporting events, initiatives Cram has supported.

Following an academic year during which the nation was shocked by six widely publicized school shootings, Cram outlined a plan for dealing with guns in schools in the future:

* Continued zero-tolerance policy. "In fact, if you want to bring a gun to school, you'll not be in a regular school setting again. And sometimes, you feel sorry for students who make a bad decision. On the other hand, I think we have to send a message that there are certain things we simply do not tolerate no matter how they occur."

* Target parents with a message of safety. "I don't think parents have done nearly a good enough job in terms of controlling weapons in their homes. If you look at our case, the answer is the vast majority of the weapons that we have confiscated would not be in the hands of children if in fact parents had made them secure in their own home. If parents will assume the role they should assume, supervising kids, supervising weapons, I don't think that that (another school shooting in Las Vegas) has to be a foregone conclusion. I think, though, if society does not get a better hold on weapons, the likelihood of something happening certainly increases."

* More technology. If the 1998 school bond passes, Cram plans to use some of the money to put security cameras in every school. Cram said school officials need to stay current on new, experimental school security technologies that are just now being developed.

* School employees need to pay more attention to threats and rumors from students, especially around the times when shootings happen in other areas of the country. "When you look at a couple of those incidents, you really say, no matter what safety paraphernalia you have, how do you prevent that? And I guess in most of those cases you would say the only way that's prevented is by paying very close attention to what kids are saying, and, second, by trying to teach other techniques to deal with anger and disappointment and other kinds of things."

* Build more schools. "The halls are crowded, the quad areas are crowded. That makes it more difficult. We really would like smaller schools. That would be a partial answer to this issue."

* Continue to add school police. "To some extent, you really hate to spend an awful amount of money on that because that's money out of instructional budgets. On the other hand, student safety has to be the No. 1 priority for us. It's an expenditure we have to make."

* Make students feel like they have somewhere to turn. "If we can keep this sense of isolation from students -- where they really feel like they may not have any adult that they can talk to about what they're feeling -- so they feel they have to take it out in some kind of rage on other individuals ... that's a major part of this whole solution."

* Take the message to churches, civic groups, and other community organizations. "Everybody has to buy in that this is a real issue and they need to deal with it."

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