A 1992-95 survey of over 1,000 Long Island, New York, students attending eight middle, junior, and high schools found that most peer harassment focused on verbal assaults. Although there was more harassment by boys, both sexes harassed their peers, mostly by name calling. The main targets were unattractive or unstylish girls, physically mature…

To be safe havens for children, schools cannot address the intellect only. Brattleboro (Vermont) Union High School went beyond academics by sponsoring a performance of "The Yellow Dress," a powerful one-woman play about a teenage victim of dating violence. The production challenged participants to unite school and community, intellect and heart.…

In peer-helping programs, a professional counselor or teacher trains a group of students who then help other students by listening, providing information, and referring them to others with the necessary expertise. Peer helpers can help improve the school climate by contributing to its health and security. Since 1979, Seattle's Natural Helpers…

A facilitator of workshops and assemblies on social skills recounts revealing dialogs with elementary and middle-level students. Discussion, often accompanied by singing and guitar music, focuses on the issues of belonging, fitting in, making friends, offering support, and practicing empathy. The music is the vehicle for helping students express…

Open meetings are regularly scheduled times when all class members and the teacher sit together in a closed circle to discuss important topics, such as name-calling. Such meetings are structured, moving from reviewing ground rules to posing a warmup question, encouraging numerous perspectives, personalizing the topic, and challenging students to…

In summer 1995, Dallas Public Schools formed a partnership with a primary care system and a mental health agency. The result was the opening of nine youth and family centers located on or near school campuses. Services are designed to promote academic success, resiliency, and self-sufficiency. By offering families and students needed support, the…

To handle unforeseen crises, Albuquerque Public Schools established a critical-incident response team with a simple, understandable chain of command. The group aims to ensure maximum safety and people' well-being, develop a districtwide crisis-response-management plan, coordinate necessary training, and collaborate with community agencies…

Many Americans view today's youth as menacing. Actually, a small percentage are arrested or incarcerated for violent offenses, only 5% are arrested for anything, adults commit 86% of all crimes, and teenage male violence is a long-standing phenomenon. However, youth homicide is a gun-fueled epidemic. Educators must resist legislators'…

A volunteer teacher working with juvenile delinquents in the Cook County (Illinois) Temporary Juvenile Detention Center's notorious Audy Home sees these kids as mirrors of his own teenage boys, deserving of compassionate assistance. Labeling other people's children as feral or superpredators is misguided. So are federal and state…

Profiles Lina Gomez, a social worker and Title I case manager who works in a Southwest border town and helps immigrant families obtain food and clothing, understand their legal rights, review rental and employment contracts, utilize Head Start services, and deal with arrest and deportation processes. The rationale for educating undocumented…

Over 750,000 U.S. school-age children are homeless. Schools can eliminate attendance and environmental barriers sabotaging these children's education by becoming communities of learning that provide specialized education for children, contextualized education for parents, and linkages to needed services. The Bronx's Brownstone School, Chicago's…

Overburdened guidance counselors and school psychologists cannot devote enough time to every student in pain. Some schools provide grief training for teachers, because these front-liners are uniquely positioned to guide grieving students and their classmates. After training in a Kids Grieve Too or a community hospice program, teachers more easily…

Catholic high schools in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese have found a new ministry in treating gay and lesbian students justly. An 11-school Pastoral Care and Sexual Identity Study Group identified four goals: hold a sexual-identity workshop for professional staff; train faculty members to function as "safe staff"; teach that homophobic…

Teachers can provide an effective counterbalance to the effects of an abusive home. They should not allow their skeptical attitudes, fear of liability, defensiveness about discipline, or religious and political affiliations to cloud their perceptions. Teachers can help hurting children by attending to their basic needs for warmth and security,…

The term "rubric" refers to a scoring guide used to evaluate the quality of students' constructed responses (written compositions, oral presentations, or science projects). Although educators rave about rubrics, the vast majority are instructionally fraudulent. Problems arise when rubrics are too task-specific or general or lengthy and confuse the…