A recent report showed an increase in the number of “violent” incidents in the WW-P district last year, but what kind of incidents are considered “violent?”
To make the list of “reportable” incidents, an incident must take place on school grounds, at a school-sponsored event, or on a school bus. The incident also has to meet certain criteria.
The Electronic Violence, Vandalism, Substance Abuse Reporting System (EVVRS) provides a list of incident definitions to school officials to help them in reporting incidents at each school. For an incident to be reported as violent it has to meet a certain definition: assault, criminal threat, extortion, fight, a harassment, bullying, or intimidation threat, kidnaping, robbery, and sex offense.
But a lot of how those incidents are reported is determined by the intent of the student/person who initiated the incident. The EVVRS also provides scenarios to help officials make those determinations.
For example, the EVVRS provides a scenario involving two kindergarten students who were chasing and tackling each other during recess. While they were playing, one student picked up an eight-inch stick and swung it around, hitting the other in the shoulder and causing a small scratch. The student explained, however, that he was pretending to be a helicopter. That would not be considered an assault because the student “did not attempt to cause the injury and did not realize his play behavior would cause an injury.”
However, in another example, an eight-year-old student hit his teacher with a ruler after being disruptive. He later told officials he hated his teacher. That would be reported as an “assault,” with the teacher as the victim.
According to David Aderhold, the assistant superintendent for pupil services at WW-P, most of the incidents reported at WW-P were not as serious as to warrant criminal charges and police presence, but rather involved typical bullying and hallway fighting incidents, which he characterized as simply “student-to-student misconduct.”
“All but one incident was something involving a student in the hallway or at dismissal time, or on the bus,” he said.
While more serious incidents seen in more urban areas has eluded WW-P, Aderhold said an incident that, for example, involved a weapon like a gun, could happen anywhere.
“Every district has to be prepared to take it seriously,” he said. “You have to be prepared for incidents of that caliber in any district.”
The annual Violence and Vandalism report, released last month, showed that incidents involving violence at the middle and high school levels increased from 20 in 2008-’09 to 33 in the 2009-’10 school year. The number of substance abuse incidents increased from 11 to 18. But vandalism fell from 14 to 9 reported incidents, while the number of incidents involving weapons fell from 5 to 4.
