Editorial on School Violence
By Richard Urban

Some suggested responses to the recent shooting at Ballou High School in Washington, DC are to increase security by using Metropolitan Police officers as security guards, and to hold school personnel more accountable for failures in school performance.  It was stated that 96% of the students at Ballou are not performing well academically.  However, an enduring solution to school violence must involve changes in the home and community environment that produces youth who become violent.

The state of the surrounding community does have a large effect on each school.  Many students are living in an environment where they are at a higher risk for being involved in the five interrelated risk behaviors affecting youth:  drinking alcohol, smoking, drug use, sexual activity, and violence.  Those who use drugs, alcohol, or who smoke are also more likely to be sexually active, and are more likely to be suspended from school.  We need to help youth stay away from these five risk activities.  A long term solution to school and community violence must address the issue of outside of marriage child bearing.  No number of security guards or police can make up for the negative effects of so many children growing up without their fathers at home (80% of births are to unmarried women in the African American community in Washington, DC).

There is a way to encourage youth to make choices that will lead to their long term health and happiness.  We can teach them the facts about the consequences of  sex outside of marriage and older students can model an abstinent and drug free lifestyle for their younger peers.  That is exactly what the ULTRA Teen Choice program does.  Youth are given the facts about HIV/AIDS.  They are taught the emotional and social consequences of having sex.  Abstinence in preparation for marriage is presented as the only 100 percent effective prevention method for pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  The many benefits of remaining abstinent until marriage are discussed.  Through the ULTRA Teen Choice program, many youth are making the commitment to be abstinent until marriage.  And many have become peer counselors.  They visit the classrooms of younger students and encourage them to be abstinent until marriage.  Be reaching out to the middle school and junior high students with this message, and through the example of their older peers, the environment in our city will be substantially changed over the coming years.

Youth who are abstaining from sex are also much less likely to smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs, or commit acts of violence.[i]  "A study of neighborhoods in Cleveland, Ohio found that the rate of out-of-wedlock births in a neighborhood was the single strongest predictor of six measures of childhood risk including low birth weight rate, infant death rate, teen birth rate, juvenile delinquency rate, and school reading performance."[ii]  "Teens from single-parent or stepparent homes are more likely to commit a school crime(possess, use or distribute alcohol or drugs; possess a weapon; assault a teacher, administrator or another student) than teens from intact homes."[iii]  Abstinence from sex outside of marriage is the best place to start for character  education and violence prevention for those students of middle school age or older.  We must break the negative cycle of outside of marriage births.  Nonprofit organizations such as ULTRA Teen Choice are already giving this positive message to youth.  And the most encouraging thing is that the youth themselves are becoming peer counselors and helping their younger peers to make the choice to be abstinent.

We do also need to make improvements in order to provide an academically challenging and thorough education for all students.  However, a good learning environment is often subverted by unruly classrooms or a few disruptive students.  For those students who do not want to be in school and insist on cutting classes and committing acts like setting fires in trash cans, or otherwise being disruptive, there needs to be effective and quick discipline.  Parents need to be informed as well of the serious consequences that will result if students do not abide by the rules.  Kevin Chavous was right to say after the Ballou shooting that a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.  Schools need more authority to discipline and remove disruptive students who do not want to be there anyway.  Most students want to study and get an education, a few do not.  These students need to be transferred to an alternative school that has a strict disciplinary policy.  Also, those over 16 who do not want to attend school should be given the option of participating in job training or vocational programs.

As the years go by and fewer students are having children as teenagers and outside of marriage, then the severe problems of violence and disruptiveness that are occurring in DC schools will be reduced.  Youth growing up with both a mom and a dad at home will be much less likely to be involved in violent or disruptive behavior.  They will also enjoy the many other social, emotional and economic benefits of a two parent household.  "Studies reveal that even in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not become delinquents." [iv]This is a powerful statistic, and one that we can take advantage of by teaching youth the benefits of abstinence until marriage, and encouraging abstinent older students to be models for their younger peers.  The majority of youth in the ULTRA Teen Choice program are from single parent homes.    They are breaking the negative cycle of outside of marriage teenage child rearing by committing to be abstinent until marriage.  We have reason to be hopeful.  Funding by the District of Columbia and Federal governments for programs that clearly teach the benefits of abstinence until marriage rather than how to use contraceptives will help reduce violence in our community in the long run, because the risk factors that influence youth to be violent will be reduced.

Richard Urban is founder, along with his wife Stacey, of ULTRA Teen Choice