Bullying, Brawling and Bringing Weapons

Md. Students Discuss Realities of School Life

By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 6, 2008; Page PG01

As about 200 students from across Maryland took their seats at a summit to discuss the problem of school violence, the stereo played an instrumental version of a song familiar, questionable and yet somehow appropriate: "Gangsta's Paradise."

Coolio's elegy to gang violence (sample lyric: "You better watch how you talking, and where you walking/Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk") perhaps didn't speak to the experience of the students from rural Garrett County in western Maryland, but the causes and tragic outcomes of school violence haven't changed much since the hit song was released in 1995.