In crafting general strategies aimed at improving school safety, participants in the group discussions focused on schools, teachers, students, counselors, families, and community resource networks.

Schools

• Do not turn schools into fortresses.
• Keep schools small; create schools within the schools.
• Evaluate accessibility to schools by the community.  Long bus rides make extracurricular activities, parental involvement, etc., more difficult.
• Take proactive measures at the elementary level.  Do not wait for problems to develop.
• Implement peer mentoring and mediation.
• Promote positive, cooperative environment.  
• Utilize volunteers and bring the community back into the school.
• Bring more mental health resources to the school (need sufficient salaries, a difficulty for some counties).
• Locate family resource centers in schools.
• Train personnel for emergencies.  Ensure that the appropriate professionals are on hand to address issues.  Do not ask people to address issues they are not trained to handle.
• Keep the school doors open after the classes end.  Have morning and after school/evening programs that involve the community during the school year (including weekends) and summer.
• Develop more alternative settings for students who cannot succeed in public schools.
• Develop and use "safe school" policies.
• Reward positive behavior (e.g., programs which reward "good deeds").
• Schools need to become more "parent friendly."

Teachers

• Train teachers to identify children with problems, but caution against "classifying" students.
• Bring back respect of educational professionals.  Low pay is an issue.
• Let teachers teach and keep their other duties to a minimum.  Do not expect teachers to be mental health professionals, police, etc.

Students

• Involve students in smaller group activities (intramurals are good if they involve everyone).
• Help students learn interpersonal skills, respect, conflict resolution, anger management, assertiveness.  Start early and reinforce throughout schooling.
• Involve students in discussing ideas to address problems.
• Focus on self-esteem of students starting at very early ages.
• Help students focus on the future and develop goals for themselves.
• Give younger students more positive role models of successful older students.
• Give students consequences and consistency.
• Expand service-learning activities of students.
• Help students internalize values of community (increase sense of pride in Appalachian culture, for example).
• Value all students, not just the athletes or star students.  Reduce alienation of students.
• Students need critical thinking skills, and the curriculum ought to facilitate this.
• Strengthen academic skills so students can find more success at school and thus feel less alienated.
• Provide students more diversity education (not just multicultural programming).
• Recognize that adequate and proper nutrition are important (free and reduced lunch is critical for many children, but sometimes avoided because of the stigma schools have found success in programs which do not distinguish those in the program from those who are not).
• Recognize that there are a myriad of issues students bring to school that affect their concentration -- family problems, drugs, health concerns, learning disabilities, physical conditions, etc.  Address the "spillover" of these issues into the classroom environment.

Counselors

• Add more school counselors to schools.
• Find ways to reduce the burden of paperwork on counselors.  Use volunteers if necessary, but free counselors time to actually work with students. 
• Have full-time counselors in elementary schools.

Families

• Parent education is key, particularly starting with prenatal support.
• Involve families before the school year begins.
• Ask parents about their children; open more opportunities for parent and teacher communication.
• Establish more parent resource centers within schools.
• Offer classes that parents and children can participate in together.
• Strengthen PTA programs.

Community Resource Networks

• Recognize that schools are not entirely responsible for fixing problems.  The community must be involved in identifying problems, developing solutions, finding resources.
• Get adult mentors involved with students.
• Look at successes of nontraditional programs or ideas (e.g., street counselors).
• Promote values.  Take the emphasis off of material things.
• Involve more people in the planning of strategies.
• Help students develop civic responsibility and pride by providing service/volunteer opportunities.
• Establish more business partnerships with schools.
• Give positive media attention to good role models.
• Strengthen partnerships between public education and higher education.
• Establish better communication among agencies.  Law enforcement, social services, and schools do not share enough information (confidentiality is an issue).
• Engage the faith community (leadership, ideas, mobilizing interest, church facilities, etc.).
• Give students places to congregate when not in school.  Give children opportunities to make friends and develop positive peer support (residential camping programs are good examples).
• Look to Family Resource Networks to help coordinate services.