Judging by the frequency of articles in local newspapers about school violence, it would be easy to assume that it's a widespread phenomenon in Northern New England. But there is conflicting evidence on the matter: while some school officials have noticed a rise in the number of school bomb threats, both New Hampshire and Vermont fall below the national average in school weapons violations.
In this school year alone, there has been a widely reported rash of bomb threats in New Hampshire and Vermont schools, including repeated incidents in Newport, N.H. and Bellows Falls, Vt. Another problem has been violations of laws against firearms in schools, an issue which has recently received substantial media coverage in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings two years ago.
In New Hampshire, 11 students were expelled from public elementary and secondary schools during the 1998-99 school year -- the last for which nationwide statistics were available -- under a state law that requires a one-year expulsion for a student who brings a firearm to school. All 11 who were expelled were high schools students.
The number of violations in 1998-99 reflected a 120 percent increase over 1997-98, when just five students were expelled under the law.
Though 11 gun-related expulsions may seem like a high number for a mostly rural state like New Hampshire, the data still place the state below the national average. In New Hampshire, about five students out of every 100,000 were expelled under the state school firearms law, while the national average of those expelled under similar state laws is just over six.
In Vermont, just three students, also all high-schoolers, were expelled under a similar state law in 1998-99, down from five in 1997-98 school year. That gives the state an average of just three gun-related expulsions per 100,000 students.
An area where New Hampshire and Vermont differ markedly from the national trend is in the age of the offenders.
Nationally, 43% of the public school students expelled for firearms violations in 1998-99 were elementary or middle school students. Locally, all of those expelled that year were in high school.
A related phenomenon, bomb threats, is harder to track.
No national or New Hampshire state agency currently keeps statistics on school bomb threats like the recent ones in Newport, but Kathryn Chandler of the U.S. Department of Education Statistics said a report of such data is currently being compiled.
That means it's hard to know how New Hampshire stacks up against the rest of the country. But the prevailing opinion is that the recent streak of bomb threats in the area does represent an increase from the average.
Larry Wight, principal of Newport Middle High School, which received a series of copycat bomb threats in March, said the recent series of local threats may be due to a snowballing effect.
"I think once it starts it gets a lot of media attention, and someone gets the idea, 'Maybe we'll try it here,'" he said.
Wight acknowledged an increase in the number of bomb threats in recent years. He said that while bomb threats in schools are now relatively commonplace in many New Hampshire schools, "before it was a rare event."
He theorized that improved communication, particularly the rise of the Internet, may play a role in facilitating copycat incidents of school violence, since the news of incidents like the Columbine shootings can now spread almost instantaneously.
When a student brings a gun to school, it creates a potentially very dangerous situation, but some may view bomb threats as more of a nuisance.
Federal statistics have shown that 97 percent of all bomb threats are hoaxes, according to State Trooper First Class Andy Parsons, commander of the state police explosive disposal unit, who was quoted in The New Hampshire Sunday News on April 15.
"They are made to cause disruption and that's it," he said.
During the recent threats at Newport, administrators immediately decided to evacuate the school on each of the seven days when threats were made. Assuming a "better safe than sorry" mentality, they at first decided to cancel classes.
"If we get a threat, we don't take the chance," Wight said.
The repeated threats forced administrators to work with police to find a solution to stop them from continuing. They had theorized the main motivation behind the threats was simply to force the cancellation of classes, perhaps by a student who had not prepared for a test scheduled for that day.
Their solution was to find other locations to hold classes, such as church basements and fire stations.
The next time a threat was made, the school was evacuated and the students were bussed to the alternate locations. That was the last of the threats.
Wight added that most students were happy with the solution. "98 percent of the kids want no part of these things," he said.
