Published August 2001 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Safe Schools: A Shared Responsibility
As the days of summer draw to a close, parents soon will send their children back to the classrooms for the start of another school year. In an effort to find new methods to protect students and teachers, I added $100,000 to a federal appropriations bill last year to support a collaborative approach toward preventing violent schoolhouse tragedies, visited upon other states, from occurring in West Virginia. This funding, which was recently released by the U.S. Department of Education, will assist the West Virginia University (WVU) Extension Service to develop training materials for specialized workshops to be held at three pilot middle schools or junior high schools throughout the 2001-2002 school year. As a team, WVU Extension agents and on-site school coordinators from each pilot school will conduct specialized training seminars for teachers and other school personnel. This project will take advantage of the knowledge and insights of those closest to the problem -namely, the teachers, administrators, and students who spend at least eight hours a day in the schools. It will pair their experiences with the technical and research expertise at WVU to create thorough, creative approaches for the prevention of school violence. The results of the pilot project will be evaluated at the end of the school year. This initiative builds on the success of a pair of school violence prevention conferences that I cohosted previously with WVU President David C. Hardesty. In August 1999, we welcomed parents, teachers, lawmakers, police officers, and faith leaders to the first-ever statewide symposium on school safety. That event was followed by a students only Youth Summit, held in April 2000 at WVU and seven other sites across the state. The recommendations from these events have helped to shape this new pilot project. Tragedies can occur at any school at any time. Ending this problem is a shared responsibility. It will take a concerted effort, like the one under way at West Virginia University-- which blends the insights of teachers, students, parents, and community organizations -to develop and institute the comprehensive measures that are necessary to ensure classrooms remain safe. August 8, 2001