Conflict Resolution

Q. What has nine heads, 18 feet and a reputation for attacking itself? A. The Willingboro Board of Education. For nearly two decades, the blatant animosity and disrespect exhibited by school board members toward each other - and sometimes the public - has served as fodder for both criticism and comic relief. Throughout Burlington County, cable television subscribers faithfully await the twice-monthly broadcasts of board meetings on Channel 8 to view behavior so outrageous it is funny.

A select group of Chester County high school student leaders spent all of yesterday at a conflict-resolution workshop but did not learn a thing about avoiding conflicts. The point of the workshop was to discover how to learn from conflicts and deal with them better. So the group of about 40 students examined what makes a conflict a conflict, what factors can contribute to a conflict, and how to live with the inevitable conflicts of life. The students - nominated by teachers, guidance counselors and principals - took away different messages from the workshop, held at the Desmond Hotel.

One day at a Bucks County high school, two teenage girls started arguing in the hallway. One girl had spread rumors about the other girl's being promiscuous, and within minutes, the two were throwing punches. But by the end of the school day, the two girls, who just hours earlier were ready to gouge each others' eyes out, were hugging, crying and swearing to their undying friendship. The reason was peer mediation. As Bucks County teachers and administrators see violence creep into their schools, they are increasingly turning to peer mediation and conflict resolution for help.

It seemed like typical schoolyard stuff: one child throwing a ball at another. But it represented a festering hurt between two former friends that had begun with a snub at a birthday party - and that threatened to grow more hostile. What was needed was a peacemaker, someone to turn the conflict into mutual understanding. Through role-playing at an in-service session last week, Wissahickon School District teachers learned conflict-resolution techniques that will help them become peacemakers when necessary, and also pass the skills on to their students.

Troubled by Chester High School's high daily absentee rate - which averages almost 30 percent - State Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland decided to knock on doors to see for himself why students weren't in school. Some children told him they didn't want to be teased because their clothes weren't stylish. Others said they had to take care of younger siblings because their parents were absent or under the influence of drugs. And, some said fear of violence at school kept them home, Kirkland told members of the League of Women Voters at the Chester Friends Meeting House Saturday.

As schools reopen nationwide, millions of students will hit the books in institutions profoundly changed by the rare, but unforgettably horrifying, events of the spring: Armed teenagers shooting up schools. Millions have been spent on metal detectors, surveillance cameras, computerized ID cards, even see-through book bags, in hopes of instilling a greater sense of security - and peace of mind. Yet American schools consistently rank among the safest places for kids to be each day - thanks to steps taken well before the shootings in Littleton, Colo.

"Our kids don't have music or art in their schools," jazz singer Barbara Montgomery was saying in a recent interview. "And the work I do with them, in the conflict resolution I do, shows how important the need is. " Montgomery had just returned to her Haverford home from a Philadelphia afternoon. "Today, I was at Olney Middle School, with 85 eighth graders - a workshop, conflict resolution and violence prevention. " It is the sort of work that she is hoping to further through a concert series in West Chester.

Police said Otis Hicks had the wrong "key" to conflict resolution. Hicks, who has been trying to get a job teaching the staff and students in the Bensalem School District how to resolve conflicts, was charged yesterday with scratching a neighbor's car with a key. The neighbor, a member of a group opposed to the creation of the new post by the school board, caught Hicks scratching the car on videotape, police said. He was charged with criminal mischief. Police said Hicks, 37, an aide at the Youth Development Center in Trevose, was taped key-in-hand Saturday evening scratching the 1994 Saturn of Mark and Margaret Zaporowski outside the family's apartment at Longmeadows Apartments.

In the small world of elementary school, where learning the ABCs coexists with the social frenzy of recess and lunch, tensions have been known to surface. For instance, who's friends with whom, whose dress is prettier, who was not picked for that game of football. And when children get angry, things can get ugly - stomping, yelling, hitting, crying, sulking. At a "peace camp" in Langhorne, children learn that at such moments, they can walk away instead of yell, hit a pillow instead of a classmate, and empathize with their adversaries instead of calling them names.

By the time the janitor filched flowers from the dead patient's room to make time with the nursing supervisor . . . By the time the janitor's real girlfriend, a dietary worker, decided to slow up meals to the nursing supervisor's floor just to show her a thing or two . . . By the time, hungry patients started grousing way up the chain of command . . . By the time the nursing supervisor decided to go right down to the kitchen, find that...

STATE REP. Angel Cruz is going after his seventh term in the Legislature facing the same two opponents he had two years ago - retired Police Officer Jonathan Ramos and social worker Anthony Johnson. For most veterans with party backing, re-election is a cakewalk. But Cruz, 46, defeated Ramos by just 139 votes in 2010 and figures to have another tight race, thanks in part to an ongoing feud with Carlos Matos, a continuing political power in the city's Latino community despite a recent federal-prison term for bribery.

      For many state House candidates, Tuesday's primary will be a ceremonial coronation for a noncompetitive race in November, but the opposition for some veteran state representatives offers some interesting twists. Here's a look what State Reps. Angel Cruz, Babette Josephs, and James Roebuck are up against in their races:   Cruz vs. Johnson, Ramos State Rep. Angel Cruz is going after his seventh term in the legislature facing the same two opponents he had two years ago - retired police officer Jonathan Ramos and social worker Anthony Johnson.

Day and night, SEPTA operators witness the soul of the city. There are the regulars, Mr. and Miss So-and-so. There are hotel workers, casino workers, and fast-food workers, uniforms rumpled, coming home from the suburbs. There are suited professionals headed to Center City. There are honor students and delinquents. There are girlfriends cradling their babies on prison visits. There are tourists and shoppers. There are drunk partygoers coming out of Old City. There are twitchy addicts headed to Kensington and Allegheny; on the return, their fare is up their arms.

Helen Fay Lovett, 88, a retired librarian and volunteer at the Peace Center in Langhorne, died Sunday, Aug. 28, of complications from a stroke at Pennswood Village, a retirement community in Newtown. Mrs. Lovett worked in the libraries at Newtown Friends School and George School. In 1969, she earned a master's degree in library science from Rutgers University and then joined the Bucks County Free Library as adult extension librarian. In the 1970s, Mrs. Lovett established a 2,000-book library in the Bucks County Prison.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). You may have so much deskwork to do that exercising your body seems like something that could only happen in your fantasy life. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The people in your environment now may not be related, but they sure act as if they are. You'll play the parent. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Many people witness the same event, and each one will remember it differently. Your version will be the most accurate. CANCER (June 22-July 22). Sometimes you're happier observing the goings on instead of participating in them.

THREE YEARS in as head of Philadelphia public schools and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has the battle scars to show for it. Last school year, she faced harsh criticism for her handling of the beatings of dozens of Asian students at South Philadelphia High, which resulted in a student protest and boycott, a federal probe and the recent letter by the Department of Justice validating the students' complaints. She also faced intense scrutiny over both her high salary and a hefty bonus.

"Our kids don't have music or art in their schools," jazz singer Barbara Montgomery was saying in a recent interview. "And the work I do with them, in the conflict resolution I do, shows how important the need is. " Montgomery had just returned to her Haverford home from a Philadelphia afternoon. "Today, I was at Olney Middle School, with 85 eighth graders - a workshop, conflict resolution and violence prevention. " It is the sort of work that she is hoping to further through a concert series in West Chester.

Don't blame L&I I strongly disagree with the city controller that the Department of Licenses and Inspections is not doing enough to enforce the law against illegal signs ("Controller seeks hike in fines for illegal signs," Aug. 16). The department's Neighborhood Services Blight Removal Unit, along with the Community Life Improvement Program and the Anti-Graffiti Network, have aggressive, ongoing programs to remove illegal signs. In the last year, L&I has removed 9,592 signs and written $21,525 in code violation notices, despite the frequent difficulty of locating the responsible party.

As Mayor Street tries to combat the rising homicide rate in the city, he's turning to the public schools for some help. Every student in the district this school year will get some training on how to resolve conflicts peacefully - commonly known as conflict resolution - Street's Education Secretary Jacqueline Barnett said yesterday. The request comes as the 174,000-student district continues to deal with violence in its classrooms, including several serious assaults on teachers - one in which a teacher's neck was broken last winter.

For fish-in-a-barrel humor opportunities, you probably won't be able to top Khasro Goran's visit to Philadelphia. Goran, you see, is leading a three-person delegation from Iraq, in town to learn about . . . drumroll, please . . . good government. He's here because he befriended a Philadelphian who served in an Army Reserve civil-affairs unit that helped administer Iraq's first municipal elections. The reservist, Pat Dugan, was until last month a lawyer in the office of City Councilman Rick Mariano, who's been in federal custody since a corruption conviction last week.