Hilo High School and a handful of other schools around the state have dramatically reduced the number of serious assaults on campus in recent years, a pattern that suggests anti-bullying, anti-harassment and anti-discrimination programs can have an impact.

While the successes are encouraging, there is still much more to be done, state statistics show. Many schools report persistently high numbers of assaults on campus, and assault tallies seem to be heading in the wrong direction at other schools.

Serious assaults more than doubled at King Intermediate, for example, and tripled at Central Middle from the 2005-2006 school year to last year, according to reported violations of the schools' disciplinary code, known as Chapter 19.

The community is accepting a level of violence in schools that would be completely inappropriate for adults in a work setting or almost any other environment, said D. Trinidad Hunt, a consultant who trained students and staff for anti-bullying programs at Farrington High, Kealakehe Intermediate and other schools.

She uses the example of a student bending over to get a drink at a fountain, and being roughly shoved aside by another student. At middle school, this might barely be noticed. Among adults at work, it could trigger a lawsuit, she said.

"I think we've become numb to it," said Hunt, a former teacher and founder of Elan Enterprises. "I think it's overwhelming. We've become numb to the fact that there are behaviors (in school) we would not allow in a normal business."

SAFETY COMMITTEE

State Superintendent of Schools Patricia Hamamoto established a 20-member Safe Schools Community Advisory Committee in 2005 to make proposals for prevention strategies and interventions to make schools safer, and that committee submitted a report last June urging the DOE to create anti-bullying, anti-harassment and anti-discrimination programs in every school by 2010.

The committee cited a 2005 survey of Hawai'i students that found 38 percent of middle school and 22 percent of high school students reported someone had tried to punch, kick or hit them at school at least once in the previous month.

The same survey found almost 7 percent of Hawai'i middle and high school students reported skipping school in the previous 30 days because they felt unsafe at school or on their way there.

The committee also urged the state to create incentives for schools to accurately report harassment and bullying incidents.

Hamamoto said the department supports the Safe Schools report, but is still studying the document to plan how to properly implement its recommendations.

The department has not asked state lawmakers this year for money to carry out the committee's proposals, but Hamamoto said she expects to approach state lawmakers next year for funding for the effort. She said that will allow enough time to meet the 2010 target proposed by the committee.

Faye Kennedy, co-chair of the Friends of Civil Rights and a member of the Safe Schools Committee, said she is familiar with cases of bullying and blatant racial prejudice in the schools, and "my own feeling is that there really needs to be a lot more progress."

"I think certain schools are worse than others, and I think that the work that we did is very much needed, but I think that there hasn't been the progress that I would like to have seen," Kennedy said.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

At Kapa'a Middle School on Kaua'i, principal Nathan Aiwohi said he found it "pretty shocking" that his school ranked at or near the top in the state for assaults for the past two years. Aiwohi, who took over as principal in January 2007, said he has been discussing the statistics with parents, and is asking for help from his community.

"We desire and need community people and parents to come in and get involved. That's what we need, we're open to that, and prepared for that," he said.

Aiwohi also described a variety of staff initiatives his school has launched such as increasing in-depth student counseling, reaching out to students who are struggling academically, more meetings with the parents of violators, and deploying more administrators and staff to supervise students during free time.

Kapa'a Intermediate has also taken the tricky step of disciplining students Aiwohi called the "passive instigators," or students who urge their peers to fight or do mischief. "There's always somebody that wants to be entertained and is pushing an issue," he said.

Aiwohi said he is confident those steps have helped, and said the numbers of assaults at Kapa'a are on the decline this year.

School administrators who were unhappy with their student-misconduct statistics have tried various strategies for reducing violence and improving the learning environment, and in some cases the statistics show they are getting results.

Principals at Hilo High and Kealakehe Intermediate, where the Elan program has been tried, say it has made a difference.

Both schools showed significant reductions in assaults, and Hilo High also recorded a steep reduction in a less serious offense called "disorderly conduct." That category includes fights where students were exchanging blows or acting in a mutually aggressive manner, said Hilo High principal Robert Dircks.

The number of assaults at Hilo High declined from 31 in the 2005-2006 school year to just six last year — one of the steepest reductions in assaults in the state — while disorderly conduct cases declined from 81 to 41.

Dircks said the school took a hard look at the assault data, and launched new initiatives two years ago to try to reduce conflict and to promote tolerance.

The school launched a mentoring program so that students with problems would have an adult to talk to, and established a student "gay-straight alliance" to ease divisions over sexual orientation.

The school also tried the anti-bullying program, and imposed five-day suspensions for first offenders involved in fights. Students involved in a second offense are given a choice: They can accept a longer suspension that could delay their graduation, or attend anger-management classes.

EFFORTS PAYING OFF

Staff members such as social studies teacher Albert Ferreira said the effort has paid off.

"Where three years ago there would be one fight every day, I've seen it drop to this year where there's maybe one fight every three weeks or four weeks," said Ferreira, who is one of the advisers overseeing the anti-bullying program.

Hilo High is the first school to use student trainers to carry out the Elan program, drawing trainers from various school factions such as the basketball players, the band members, the overachievers or the kids from the "country," or rural areas.

Those students make presentations to classes that involve role playing to encourage their peers to stop the teasing, and to imagine themselves as the victims of bullying.

Darren Abalos, a Hilo High senior and a trainer in the anti-bullying program, said the two years of training slowly sank into his fellow students' thinking, and it made a difference. "I know people barely listen to us, but they're still hearing us," Abalos said.

At Kealakehe Intermediate, the school sacrificed some teaching positions and increased class average sizes to provide money for programs to curb violence and misconduct on campus.

When Kealakehe Intermediate principal Donald Merwin came to the school in December 2004, he felt the campus was "fairly chaotic" with youngsters roaming the school grounds, and no school plan for dealing with the problem, he said.

"I took a hard line on any kids that were involved in disorderly conduct or assaults, and we actually had kids taken into custody and removed from campus," he said. "Basically, I just felt we had to take a hard line on making sure that we dealt with getting the campus safe and orderly before any kind of learning could successfully take place."

CLOSE EYE ON STUDENTS

Teachers there quickly launch into activities when students arrive to reduce the time for mischief before class starts. Bathroom breaks are almost completely banned for the 10 minutes after class starts, and the 10 minutes before it ends to reduce student roaming, and the number of lunches each day was reduced from three to two to cut down on the hours students were out of class.

More security and office staff was hired to cope with disciplinary issues, the Elan anti-bullying program was established to train each new sixth-grade class, and a highly popular mentoring program was created.

The payoff was that Kealakehe Intermediate reported six assaults in 2006-2007, less than half the 13 reported a year earlier. The number of cases of disorderly conduct increased from 81 to 148, but Merwin said he believes that is because the school staff is now very careful to record every incident.

Some schools find they can reduce problems on campus without consultants or new training programs. One example is Kaimuki High, where the number of assaults dropped from 39 to 17, and the number of disorderly conduct cases declined from 111 to 63.

Kaimuki vice principal Ronald Oyama attributes that progress to a number of factors, including a seasoned security crew familiar with the students, and watchful teachers and counselors who immediately report any signs of trouble. The staff aggressively follows up on reports of problems, and quickly pulls dispute participants into mediation, he said.

"When we hear anything, we're on top of it," he said. "I'll tell you the truth, our students are real straight up, they're going to tell you that they hate you, they love you, 'I don't like this person,' and that's how we kind of get word of it."

PROGRESS VARIES

There also were a number of arrests on campus in recent years that Oyama said may have gotten the students' attention. "It may be that the kids got the word of mouth that, you know what, you're going to get arrested, and getting suspended of course is something they don't want," he said.

Administrators at other schools said they don't know how to account for sometimes disturbing misconduct statistics, or did not respond to requests for comment on the data.

Waipahu High, which has some of the highest assault statistics in the state, did not respond to a request for comment.

At Central Middle, where assaults increased last year, vice principal Cindy Yun-Kim said in an e-mail that the school administrative team there had changed since 2005-2006, and it "might not be fair" to compare data from that year with last year.

At Waipahu Intermediate, assaults increased from five in 2005-2006 to 21 last year. Randell Dunn, who is in his fifth year as principal at Waipahu Intermediate, said his school had higher rates of suspension years ago, and then the numbers dropped.

"It goes up and down depending on the students we have," he said. Parents and other campus visitors remark on how friendly and open the youngsters are, and "we have really good students," Dunn said.

"Sometimes, the Chapter 19 (disciplinary code) data doesn't truly reflect the climate of the school," he said. "It's usually that small population that causes most of the problems, the Chapter 19 cases, and not the large majority of the kids."

However, Dunn said he and many of his fellow principals believe creating organized athletic and other extracurricular programs at more middle and intermediate schools would reduce disciplinary problems on those campuses.

Those kinds of programs helped improve the campus atmosphere at Kalakaua Middle during Dunn's time there by promoting teamwork, healthy competition and self-discipline, he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.