A solution to school gangs and violence.

According to the Baltimore Sun article, “Schools to Combat Gangs”, Baltimore City is going to set aside more funding to help eliminate violence within the middle and high schools. The main point of the extra funding is to better educate the students on gangs, to staff the schools with more police officers and hall monitors, and to make more in school suspension programs within the schools.


Baltimore city needs to take a stronger stance on gangs with in the schools. The article suggested that gang prevention program to be started in middle school. As a 6th grade teacher, many of the students have already formed their opinions of gangs at this time. Gang prevention needs to be started earlier in the students life, they need to start it before the students have opinions on gangs. My school has a gang problem but a prevention program, would not be useful. Many of the students that I teach at 6th grade have already formed their opinion of gangs, making them sit through a class on gangs would not help eliminate them from joining a gang or prevent the gang problems from starting in the school. The students need to be educated on gangs at younger ages so that the allure of gang life is never glamorous to them. They also could try to implement more after school activities for students more likely to join a gang.
The article also stated that more money would be available for schools to hire more police and hall monitors. This will help eliminate some of the violence problems with in the schools but it has to be the right people for the job. Not just anyone can come become a good hall monitor, especially in middle school. In my two years at my middle school we have had 12 different hall monitors. Right now we have three; one of the three does an excellent job. He walks around the school and come running when there is a problem. Most importantly he doesn’t become friends with the students. The other two hall monitors and the hall monitors we have had in the past, they have become friends with the students. The hall monitors can be a huge asset to a school and help to significantly lower the violence and keep gang activity to a minimum in schools if they do their job correctly. They need to circulate the school and make their presence felt with in the halls. They also need to be firm and consistent with the rules and consequences of the school when dealings with the students. The problem that the two hall monitors in my school have is that they are not consistent. They have become friends with some students who they allow to get away with more and are harsher on the students they are not friends with. The other problem that my school has, along with others, is that the administration refuses to suspend anymore students. My administration has said that we have too many suspensions and we won’t be suspending any more students. This means that the students are able to fight each other and face no consequences. My school refuses to give out anymore suspensions because they don’t want to be listed as persistently dangerous. This goes back to being consistent with the rules and consequences that the school has. It is very hard to end a violence problem when the students realize there is no consequence for fighting.


Baltimore’s solution to end gangs and violence in schools has some potential; however it has to be done correctly. If Baltimore city starts looking now for hall monitors and trains them correctly over the summer they could become very helpful at preventing violence and gang problems from starting next school year. Same with the in school suspension programs that the article suggested they were going to start. This would help to alleviate the issues of not being able to suspend all the students who deserve to be suspended.

Article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.ci.violence01apr01,0,4993662.story?coll=bal-education-utility