The horror at Virginia Tech University last month and this school year, tragedies from Colorado to Pennsylvania served as a startling reminder that the issue of school violence urgently needs to be addressed. Taking cues from the national headlines, last October the White House organized a special conference on school violence, inviting specialists and experts from around the country to Washington in an effort to find solutions to this epidemic.

The statistics are sobering. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, over a million high school students across America take a weapon to school at least once a month. As a result, 996,227 high school students reported feeling too unsafe to even go to school in the same time period. These figures show that this problem is not an isolated one; rather entire communities need to come together to ensure the safety of their children.

In 2002, the Department of Education and the Secret Service commissioned a study on school safety. Among the final report was a significant fact: 81 percent of school attackers tell someone of their plans beforehand. From this piece of information, the non-profit PAX created the school safety program SPEAK UP. PAX quickly developed 1-866-SPEAK-UP, the first-ever national, toll-free, bilingual hotline which kids can call to anonymously report weapon threats at school. In just four years, the hotline has received over 19,000 calls and has helped to prevent countless incidents in schools nationwide. An unprecedented resource to prevent school and community violence, the hotline is also supported by a curriculum that meets the National Standards for Health Education and helps kids recognize early signs of school violence. Many Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) chapters participate in this hotline program.

As a result of their work on the issue, PAX was invited to participate in the White House’s conference last fall and continues to be active in communities across the country. For more information, please visit www.paxusa.org.