The changes observed in the school context demand new practices and impose new challenges to the operational assistants that, due to their relevant role in the educational environment, must be prepared and endowed with knowledge and skills to conduct their profession in a fully useful way. This is only possible through the promotion of their…

Legal and educational trends necessitate close collaboration between teachers and lawyers. Effective collaboration is early, ongoing, and in-depth. It requires understanding of structural arrangements, political influences, interprofessional communication techniques, and negative attitudes. (SK)

This brief presents the assumptions underlying the approach taken by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College, Columbia University, in creating a nonviolent school. It also provides specific program components that schools can implement. The approach is based on the recognition that violence is a function…

Although violence prevention programs can be helpful, they are frequently poorly targeted and unrealistic about the social forces driving student behavior. Conflict-resolution training is effective when it occurs within a cooperative context, teaches students when a conflict is or isn't occurring, stresses concrete negotiation and mediation…

Many schools and educational programs are successfully responding to the problem of student violence. This article explores a variety of techniques that include school or program-wide initiatives, partnerships, or collaborations with outside agencies; partnerships with families; and classroom curricula that help youth learn to resolve conflicts…

Some researchers and practitioners believe that schools can play a leading role in preventing violence among youth. This document offers a framework for collaboration that moves from simply recognizing the problem to preparing youth to live peaceably in a diverse community. The "Creating a Peaceable School" program is based on the premise that…

The Days of Respect program is a collaboration of students, parents, and teachers working together to end verbal, emotional, sexual, and physical harassment and abuse in the school community by bringing people together to plan, train each other, and then to facilitate a multi-day school-wide Days of Respect. The program achieves its goals by…

Increasing violence and threats of violence in American schools have prompted many school districts to take aggressive action in providing greater security and more positive learning environments. This book presents an alternative approach--that of training students in conflict resolution and peer mediation. The book offers specific, practical…

This paper profiles an educational reform program targeting academically and socially at-risk and underachieving students. The project began as a district-wide training program for school psychologists, guidance counselors, social workers, and elementary-level instructional consultants. The program focuses on helping schools to plan for and…