KANE'OHE — Two or three times a week, as students from King Intermediate stream home along Kamehameha Highway after school, a small clutch of residents stands guard at the corner of their nearby neighborhood.

The residents, garbed in bright yellow "Community Policing" T-shirts supplied by Honolulu police, say their presence helps thwart reckless behavior by the students, which has occurred intermittently for years but spiked before they started patrolling four months ago.

Residents say they have had fences, mailboxes and a car damaged, rocks thrown through windows and at solar panels and seen students hurt in fights that draw 50 to 75 student onlookers.

"Before the citizens patrol came into effect, kids would take out their frustrations with each other and would say, 'Let's fight after school,' " said retiree Ted Kanemori, who lives on He'eia Street next to the school. "So they'd go off campus because they know the school doesn't have any authority, and the nearest place they could find was our neighborhood."

But Kane'ohe isn't the only area wrestling with such problems. As neighborhoods across the state rub shoulders with immature adolescents struggling to tame their emotions, conflicts can occur.

"We know it happens," said Farrington High School principal Catherine Payne. "And we've heard about things that have occurred on evenings or weekends, but we don't get a lot of calls to the school complaining about it.

"What we do get complaints about is kids loitering by the bus stops or at the bakery next to someone's house. If it's within our line of sight we feel responsible for it and we'll send our security to round them up. But you can't always control everything 24 hours."

Traditionally a school's jurisdiction has ended at the property line but some educators feel their responsibility goes beyond. And a Board of Education committee has been debating whether changes should be made to extend the reach of schools when it comes to discipline.

Last school year, quick action by Farrington personnel alerted social workers to potential trouble after Farrington students boarded a bus for Campbell High in 'Ewa Beach where they planned some kind of confrontation. Payne said social workers met the bus and successfully worked at calming the situation.

"If things are happening right around your perimeter and you can see it, we feel it's our responsibility (to do something)," said Payne. "We don't want kids to feel they can step across campus and get in a fight and we're not going to do anything about it."

In Kapolei where Kapolei High School borders Kapolei Regional Park and a neighborhood of homes bordered with hollow-tile walls, the cement blocks are often adorned with graffiti, said an officer at the Kapolei police station.

"Residents will call that juveniles are spray-painting the walls," said a station spokesman. "Usually when we get the call an officer will go there and check, to see if there are any children who might be off campus. The school's jurisdiction ends within the school grounds."

The Kane'ohe residents say most of the students they see are pleasant, law-abiding young people whom they often help cross the street by waving speeding cars down before the crosswalk.

King Intermediate principal Cynthia Chun has met with the residents and says her school leadership team is tossing around ideas to see how they might improve the situation.

Already the school has a daily character education lesson called Project Wisdom for all students. It lasts about a minute, during which a few words of wisdom from a famous person are shared and then teachers can follow that up in individual classes by talking about what it means personally. As well, Chun said the school has embraced the "Five Rs" program under way in their complex area that focuses on developing positive relationships by being respectful, responsible, resourceful and resilient.

"Both of us want the same thing — for our students to be responsible and respectful," said Chun. "But it's not a school problem alone. It's a community problem. They would like for us to handle whatever happens in their neighborhood. It's not possible. Our first responsibility is what's happening at school."

But she says King Intermediate students have participated in graffiti paint-outs in the community and were impressed when she announced at a school-wide assembly early in the year that residents would be out on the roadway to watch over students.

"You'll see our neighbors out there in yellow shirts," she told the school. "They're there to make sure you're OK. ... Please say 'hello' and 'thank you.' "

For their part, some of the students who pass by the neighborhood every day to and from school do greet the residents, and they think it's fine residents are there as a precaution to ward off fights and also to watch over them.

"I think it's good," said 13-year-old eighth-grader Ryan Kealoha. He said there had been a lot of fights after school last year.

"A couple every week," he added.

Seventh-grader Kelsi Fernandez, 12, said most students know when fights are happening or going to happen and a huge crowd will gather.

That's all it takes to bring the neighborhood to a boil.

"They would gather at the nearest place they came to, which is right in front of my house," said Kanemori.

"A couple of fights back, a kid had to be taken to get medical attention and the kid who beat him up got arrested. That was just earlier this year."

Also frustrating, say residents, is trying to find an agency to help with the problem.

"We're below the radar for police," said Leila Uyehara, the housewife who first mobilized the citizens after she saw some students loitering and smoking marijuana in the neighborhood as she walked her daughter to school.

"And the school says it's not a school problem because it's not on their property, so is it just our problem?"

Police officers have met with the Kane'ohe citizens group. "Community Policing" divisions within the police districts do work with residents to assemble statistics on residential crimes in neighborhoods, said a Kapolei spokesman.

But Kanemori said in Kane'ohe, some residents have given up reporting because they're convinced nothing will change. And when that happens, says Kanemori, statistics are lacking, and without good statistics on amount and kind of damage, there's not much police can do other than put on a few extra patrols.

Kanemori believes the issue is bigger than his neighborhood and involves educating children toward good citizenship along with good academics, a mission he thinks schools should embrace more fully.

"Someone ought to be teaching these kids how to behave," he said.

He and Uyehara would like to see the school try such strategies as maybe "adopting" the nearby Kane'ohe neighborhoods as groups do highways, to encourage students to have pride in their environs. If a club took the lead, for instance, they think other students would follow.

In fairness, the residents acknowledge that not long ago a number of King Intermediate students participated in a police-sponsored paint-out of graffiti, including some on one neighbor's hollow-tile wall.

"We'd like to see that spread and see that ripple grow," said Uyehara.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.