Residents united by problem

Come to Jesus.

Talk to your children.

Give them something to do.

Those were a sampling of suggestions made by more than 200 people gathered at Knudson Middle School on Wednesday night. They were there to discuss rolling back the tide of school-related violence that has hit Clark County this year.

The town hall meeting, sponsored by Cox Communications, brought together students, community leaders and the father of Christopher Privett, a Palo Verde High School freshman gunned down in a February drive-by shooting near the suburban campus.

"I'd like you all very much to know that Chris was a great guy," said Mike Privett, a veteran teacher who was greeted with a standing ovation from the audience.

What Privett wants to come from his son's tragic death is a community effort to make sure that what happened to Chris doesn't happen to anyone else.

"We need, as a community, to work toward that," Privett said.

Cox Vice President Steve Schorr acted as a moderator at the event, which was televised and streamed live on the Internet.

"I have 836 grandchildren," Schorr said as he explained his involvement. "The (Clark County) school district has blessed me with an elementary school named after me."

To do nothing in response to the violence that took Christopher Privett's life would be to fail those students, he said.

But what to do became a question that by turns united and ignited the audience, some of whom were frustrated that it took a student death in a wealthy Las Vegas community to prompt a call for action.

The Rev. S.S. Rogers, of Greater Mt. Sinai Missionary Recruiting Ministries, said that students from poorer and predominantly minority communities have suffered because of gang- and school-related violence for a long time.

"There have been killings at Canyon Springs High School, there have been killings at Cheyenne High School, there have been killings at Mojave High School," Rogers said. "But no one seemed to pay attention until it happened in a rich area."

The worst mass shooting in the history of the Clark County School District left six people wounded at a district bus stop in December. Four of the victims were Mojave High School students. To counter such violence, Rogers said the community has to rise to the occasion every time it happens.

Western High School teacher Tehran Boldon stood up to say that adult involvement in the lives of children is crucial. Violence often is predicted by hallway gossip or escalating encounters, he said.

Schools also should have metal detectors and require students to carry clear bookbags to reduce the number of weapons on campus, he said.

Boldon has a reason for advocating metal detectors. Western High School student Victor Bravo was shot in the back and hand outside Gibson Middle School in February. Another Western High School student, Tevin O'Neal Carr, is charged in the shooting.

"That shooting happened about 11 minutes after school got out," Boldon said. "You know he probably had that gun in school."

A panel of seven students who volunteered to take questions from the audience gave a range of responses about whether they felt safe on campus. Yes, they had seen students bring weapons on campus. Yes, they sometimes felt unsafe at school. And yes, some of them had experienced bullying or violence.

"It's sickening, seeing everything and you can't do anything about it," a student identified only as Kacey said.

Kacey, a 2007 graduate of Centennial High School, also attended Cheyenne High School. While at Cheyenne, she said two teachers told her to transfer. "There's something really wrong when teachers are telling me to get out of the school system because they're getting out of the school system," she said.

Contact reporter Lisa Kim Bach at lbach @reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0287.