News Release

Two Johns Hopkins University experts on school violence and its prevention are available today to talk about the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Both Susan Keyes, chair of the department of Counseling and Human Services and Michael Rosenberg, chair of the Department of Special Education at Hopkins' Graduate Division of Education, have studied school violence and are currently directing initiatives in Maryland to prevent similar incidents in Maryland schools.

Susan Keys believes the United States needs to address school violence with the same approach it took when it began to address teen suicide 15 years ago.

"The same sort of effort needs to be tackled with school violence, because there are warning signs for this type of incident. And there are steps people can take to prevent them."

Keys is consultant to Schools and Inter-Agency Links (SAIL) in Anne Arundel Co., an initiative to link different state agencies with teachers and school administrators in order to reduce school violence and care for troubled students.

Keys also trains school counselors in crisis counseling at Hopkins' Division Of Education.

Michael Rosenberg is director of PAR, a highly successful behavioral management program designed to reduce violence and discipline issues in schools. Currently there are PAR schools in Washington, D.C., Howard Co., Baltimore Co., Baltimore City and Anne Arundel Co.

"You could never totally predict something like Littleton, especially when you are dealing with adolescents who are experimenting with a lot of things and going through a lot of changes, but there are a lot of things you can do to prevent teenagers from feeling isolated and alienated," said Rosenberg.