What should be done to reduce school violence?

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We also need more involvement at home from parents, family, and friends. Reducing school violence begins at home and teaching students / children the value of life. School children spend about 6 hours or so at school each day. They spend 18 hours away from school each day and they aren't even exposed to school for about the first 5 years of life. In addition to adequate mental health counseling and safety measures at schools we need to be PROACTIVE in our approach to educating our children in how to be good citizens and learners.

Arm the janitors. Just the janitors.

Turn off the violence on TV, video games, movies, etc. If the parents want to watch this stuff, do it after the kids are in bed. Stop idolizing movie stars who star in this trash.

Students should spend the day hiding & wringing their hands as they wait their turn to spend two hours daily, scared & crying, with their assigned counselor.

1. Stop turning schools into prisons
2. Bring back vocational training in high schools, as an option for students who are not all that academically motivated. Encourage apprenticeships for high school students seeking career skills.
3. Encourage parents to spend time with their children.
4. Encourage parents to have books in their homes
5. Free access to mental health care; make sure potentially violent children can be identified and given the help they need earlier.

It may also be worth looking into stricter standards on lead exposure, especially in the soil around elementary schools and in residential neighborhoods. There is good evidence that low levels of lead exposure early in life increase the likelihood of violence and crime later in life. The use of leaded gasoline left a lot of lead in our soil, and while it is expensive to remove such lead, it would be overwhelmingly beneficial to do so (perhaps we can siphon some money away from the budget for flying helicopters around to look for marijuana). Big cities were hardest-hit by leaded gasoline, because of the high concentration of cars, but even a city as small as Charlottesville probably has significant lead contamination to this day.

This is the way of the world, humans are self destructive and that's it.

Could be something to D's comment on environmental factors, I would add mercury to the list.