In the 1981 book The Wave, based on real events, the protagonist instigates a movement at his high school that enforces conformity and exerts thought control.
Almost 20 years later, high schools across North Carolina are inadvertently using the book's title as an acronym for Working Against Violence Everywhere, a controversial new program designed to help 50,000 students come to terms with actual and potential violence in their schools. If the idea catches on, the program will be exported across the country.
According to Jody Strange, program administrator for W.A.V.E., about 70 individual schools in North Carolina-including Northern High School in Durham-as well as several entire school districts have signed up since the program started in February.
W.A.V.E., funded by a public-private partnership, consists of three parts: a toll-free, 24-hour hotline; a public awareness and education campaign and the "Wave America Web site."
On the hotline, the web site explains, students can anonymously "report circumstances which could affect the security of the schools... including threatening statements, weapons on campus, fights, vandalism, drug or alcohol use/abuse or other 'warning signs' of violence."
Each school chooses a coordinator for the program, such as an assistant principal or a guidance counselor, and a police officer to follow up on calls.
At Northern High School, for instance, Deputy Sheriff Randall Felton is the school resource officer.
In the three weeks since the program has been implemented here, he has handed out wallet-sized W.A.V.E. cards with the hotline number and a "pretty self-explanatory" pamphlet to every student.
However, one of the program's goals, the identification of psychological disturbances, has left some observers up in arms.
In an article on the web site Slashdot, a site for self-declared nerds, for instance, Jon Katz alleged that the program would lead to the targeting of "geeks, nerds, Goths, oddballs, along with anyone else who is discontented, alienated and individualistic." He also said that it was offering cash and other incentives to motivate students to use the hotline.
But Tamara Park, who handles public relations for W.A.V.E., denied the allegation, explaining that "being reward-based is absolutely against our philosophy."
She clarified that the rewards were merely for contests advertised on the web site, and also addressed another possible concern-that the hotline might be abused by students playing pranks or intentionally maligning other students.
She did not consider such instances a major problem, however.
Felton agreed, hoping that the trained specialists answering the phone lines would be able to "weed out bogus crime" and adding that the program was too good to scrap just because of the potential for abuse.
Although Park said "we are making ourselves available to do rallies" to give students information about W.A.V.E., no such events have been planned in schools. Program organizers want to include parents, although that has not yet happened in Durham.
The full effectiveness and potential danger of the W.A.V.E. program remain to be determined.
Joanne McDaniel, assistant director of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, said that about 200 calls had been registered on the hotline since February, about one third of which had been tips and the rest requests for information.
The number one concern, she said, was bullying. In one case, a child extorting lunch money from another was brought to justice; in another, a young man who had brought a bee-bee gun to school was suspended for five days. McDaniel said she thought the program "is off to a good start."
According to Felton, no calls from Northern High School have yet been registered on the hotline.
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