11 Tips to Help Parents Create Safer Schools - Developed in cooperation with the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), creators of McGruff the Crime Dog. (Free, just click on it to "Order")

Bullying and Your Child, KidsHealth for Parents.

Center for Adolescent Health and Development, University of Minnesota

• 2004 - Influencing Behavior:  The Power of Protective Factors in Reducing Youth Violence, Michael Resnick and Peggy Mann Rinehart

• FACT SHEET: Factors that Make A Difference in Preventing Youth Violence, 2004. This one page fact sheet, based on the larger monograph (above) offers a recap of how individual, family and community factors play a role in youth violence.

Olweus Bullying Prevention program - A comprehensive, schoolwide program designed for use in elementary, middle, or junior high schools, Clemson University.

Stop Bullying Now! Online Resource Kit - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

ARTICLES & RESEARCH

Winter 2006 - School Safety: Lessons Learned - Strategies for collaborating on school safety, positive school climates and crisis response plans, U.S. Attorney’s Office Minnesota District, Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

Winter 2006 - Recess: not just fun and games - Trends to cut recess times or eliminate recess altogether frustrate University of Minnesota researcher Anthony Pellegrini, UMNnews.

February 2005 - Stopping School Violence: The Latest Trends - Many principals are looking at alternatives to having children sit in rooms by themselves as punishment for misbehaving. This form of detention removes the student from the learning process and doesn’t address the root of the behavior that landed him in detention in the first place. GreatSchools.net.

December 2004 - Bullying—Is It Part of Growing Up, or Part of School Violence?, Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

September 2004 - School Connectedness – Strengthening Health and Education Outcomes for Teenagers, Journal of School Health. Students are more likely to succeed when they feel connected to school. School connection is the belief by students that adults in the school care about their learning as well as about them as individuals. Based on current research evidence, the most effective strategies for increasing the likelihood that students will be connected to school include:

• Implementing high standards and expectations, and providing academic support to all students.
• Applying fair and consistent disciplinary policies that are collectively agreed upon and fairly enforced.
• Creating trusting relationships among students, teachers, staff, administrators, and families.
• Hiring and supporting capable teachers skilled in content, teaching techniques, and classroom management to meet each learner’s needs.
• Fostering high parent/family expectations for school performance and school completion.
• Ensuring that every student feels close to at least one supportive adult at school.

July 2004 - Violence-Related Behaviors Among High School Students - United States, 1991-2003 - Major findings:  school violence has gone down, but the number of students avoiding school because they didn't feel safe has gone up "significantly" over the past 10 years. 5.4 percent of students surveyed in 2003 had not gone to school at least one day in the previous month because of safety concerns up from 4.4 percent in 1993. Nearly one in 10 high school students reported being threatened or injured by a weapon on school property in the previous year. But the report also showed physical fighting and weapons possession on school grounds declined between 1991 and 2003. Prepared by the Center for Disease Control.

May 2004 - Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good?, Public Agenda Online

July 2001 - Blueprints for Violence Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.