Many schools are taking preventative measures in order to stop school violence before it starts. These measures include installing metal detectors, hiring security personnel and conducting random locker checks. These measures can be effective in keeping weapons out of schools but are relatively ineffective in deterring fistfights and verbal bullying.
Disciplinary measures are a common strategy for dealing with school violence. These measures include traditional punishments like reprimands, detention and suspension. Schools are using these measures to discourage students from repeating violent acts. Students who repeatedly engage in violent behavior may be expelled if disciplinary measures fail to correct the behavior.
Risk management programs involve the use of physical separation to minimize the incidence of school violence. Such strategies include separating students who have a history of fighting, separating bullies from potential victims and transferring bullies and their victims into different classes.
Awareness programs are information sessions held by counselors, police officers or psychologists. These sessions attempt to educate kids about the psychological, personal and legal consequences of school violence. Typically, the speaker will come into the classroom with a display board featuring images of the consequences of school violence and will speak for an hour on the topic of school violence. These sessions can be effective, but should only be conducted by a qualified professional with a proven track record in dealing with troubled youth.
Schools are using intervention and mediation to help students talk through their problems, including those involving school violence. These strategies involve getting the school guidance counselor or an outside professional to speak with students who are involved in school violence. Approaches that are currently being used include one-on-one sessions between bullies and counselors and group sessions in which the counselor attempts to reconcile the differences between two students who have been involved in bullying or fighting.
Several newly developed counseling methods are being used to deal with bullying. Such methods include the peaceable classroom method, which asks students in the classroom to share their perspective on a bully-victim situation, and the peaceable school method, in which conflict resolution is the responsibility of everyone in the school community. The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, used in four ethnically diverse school districts in New York city, is one successful example of peaceable school and peaceable classroom methods. These methods resulted in a 71-percent decrease in physical bullying in the four New York school districts involved.