When Will The Violence End?

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Columbine High School, educators and counselors are trying to offer help to those who are left to cope with a life-changing, horrendous experience.

Across the nation, people watched images that have become eerily familiar: panicked groups running for cover, sobbing teens telling how they dodged the bullets, distraught parents clutching at each other for comfort.

Underneath was a question as chilling as the scenes of televised misery: Why are America's schools turning into killing fields?

The Littleton, Colo., shooting was a violent reminder that no small town in America is immune from schoolhouse violence.

Experts don't have one answer for what is behind the shootings; they have a lot of them. Lack of supervision, accessible guns, permissive or absent parents, school officials who fail to act on warning signs, a culture redolent with violence - all are cited as contributing factors.

CBS This Morning Health Contributor Dr. Dave Hnida of CBS station KCNC-TV in Denver served as a team doctor for some of the athletes at Columbine.

"This is the type of school and the type of community [where] this kind of thing doesn't happen Â… It happens someplace else," he says.

"This is Â… a community like thousands of other communities across the country," he continues. "It is the type of community where people are going to be struggling with this for years to come, and you don't know if Â… we'll ever get over this."

As a medical professional, does Hnida have any insight as to how such young people would come to feel so alienated?

"It is a large school," he replies. "And in any school and any populations, there are small pockets of people, students who just don't fit into the norm. The question is Â… when do you need to be concerned? And that's an answer that none of us have."

Jane Hammond, superintendent of the Jefferson County Public Schools, which include Columbine High School, says her district was security-conscious.

"We've spent quite a bit of time talking about the security of children in schools," she says. "We have a districtwide crisis plan, as well as work being done at individual schools. We have formed new relationships and partnerships with police departments and the sheriff's office. We had a full-time police officer at the school during school hours.

"It is very difficult to know," she adds, "what you have to do that would stop this kind of terrible tragedy."

Scott Poland, director of psychological services for Cypress-Fairbanks Schools in Houston, led President Clinton's national crisis prevention team in West Paducah, Ky., and Jonesboro, Ark.

(In West Paducah, on Dec. 1, 1997, three students were murdered and five were wounded in a shooting in a hallway at Health High School. In Jonesboro, on March 24, 1998, four girls and a teacher were shot to death and 10 people were wounded durng a false fire alarm when two boys, ages 13 and 11, opened fire from a nearby woods.)

"Sadly, there is going to be overwhelming emotionality," says Poland. "It is important that each and every student has the opportunity to tell their story, to express their emotions, through talking, writing, artwork, music, ceremonies, and rituals."

Adults also should be aware that students who have been traumatized may suffer such symptoms as:

• Fear of the future
• Nightmares and night terrors
• Academic regression
• Behavioral regression

He cautions, "It is so important that every effort be made for faculty, parents, and students to talk this out, use their faith, and use their community."

To help prevent future mayhem in the schools, Poland makes the following recommendations:

• Make prevention and mental health services for children in schools a national priority.
• Set aside at least 30 minutes a day in every classroom to work on problem-solving, anger-management, violence-prevention, and learning to get along with everyone, "regardless of their race."
• Reduce children's access to guns.
• Prosecute adults who do not safeguard their guns from their children.

"It's just hard to say or put into words how you feel when you hear there's been another shooting, and that there's been lives lost again senselessly" says Wilson. "I remember the day after Â… being kind of numb and in shock. And I kept thinking, you know, 'At some point, I'm going to wake up and realize that this is not happening, because bad things don't happen to me'."

In explaining her stance in supporting gun control, Wilson says, "School violence has a lot of issues that come into play here. But one of the things that concerns me the most is the fact that, in all these cases, the one thing that was constant is the fact that these children had access to guns, and that bothers me."

Gun owners, she adds, must learn to lock their weapons up. "Don't assume your child's not going to touch it," she says.

She also favors stronger legislation for gun control because, she says, "We want to see people be held resonsible for how they store their weapons Â… To me, it is just common sense. But people don't normally do the right thing unless they have a law."