Hot Line Has Ring of Success Though Most Calls Are Trivial : Campuses: Thirty-six responses have been received in seven months. Officials say it instills community confidence.

Last year, Ventura school officials--alarmed by a spate of violence on local campuses--launched a hot line for people to anonymously report students carrying weapons, threatening fights or causing other problems.

To show the seriousness of their intentions, Ventura Unified School District officials chose the phone number 1-(800) 499-GROW, for Get Rid of Weapons.

But in the seven months since the toll-free number was installed, most of the 36 calls received at the district office have been about relatively minor incidents, such as students smoking cigarettes, instead of more critical concerns such as children stashing knives.

In one case, an elementary school parent phoned to report a student who had tried to set fire to some grass with a magnifying glass.

Despite the trivial nature of some of the calls, district officials say the hot line is working in two ways: It discourages students from breaking campus rules and helps to instill community confidence that schools are safe.

“The kids know they have someone or something they can go to if they sense a problem,” Supt. Joseph Spirito said. “It gives them a sense of security.”

School officials started the hot line in April as part of a round of safety measures in response to a wave of violence last winter and spring that was capped by the off-campus fatal stabbing of a Ventura High student and the stabbing injury of a Buena High student in the school parking lot.

Parents and students have always been able to call or visit their school principals to warn about brewing trouble.

But the hot line dials directly into an answering machine in the district’s downtown Ventura office, which gives students and other callers more anonymity than they would have had they called a principal directly or dropped in to the school office, Spirito said. “With a hot line, it makes them more comfortable calling in.”

Some callers, however, apparently don’t feel comfortable enough to linger on the line.

“Some of them are very obviously under stress, and they’ll hang up very, very quickly,” said district secretary Valli Davis, who is the first to listen to the messages.

As soon as district officials receive a message, they call the appropriate school principal, who is expected to submit a written report to Spirito on whatever action was taken.

Buena High Principal Jaime Castellanos said he makes a point of dropping whatever he is doing to respond to every hot-line call.

“I want whoever calls to know we’re handling it immediately and we’re taking it seriously,” Castellanos said. “If you don’t do that, they are not going to call in. The hot line will be worthless.”

Some of the calls involving students at Buena and other schools have been serious, officials said.

In one case, a Buena High girl reported that a boy in one of her classes was planning to beat up another male in the same class, Castellanos said. Although the caller did not leave the boys’ names, she described them, enabling school officials to find and talk to the youths before any incidents occurred.

“By virtue of getting that call,” Castellanos said, “I thought we were able to head off something that potentially could have turned into a fight.”

Despite the acronym of the last four digits of the phone number, school officials could recall only one hot-line call about a student carrying a knife or other weapon to school. In that case, the youth was unarmed when questioned.

Some students said that although they are not opposed to the hot line, they doubt that their classmates use the phone number as often as they could.

“I don’t think anyone really uses it,” said Chip Watson, 14, a freshman at Buena High. “No one really likes to rat on anyone.”

Another Buena High freshman, Dave Parsons, said that if he knew about something he considered a minor problem, such as a student carrying a small knife to school, he would be reluctant to call.

But, the 15-year-old said, “if it was going to be a big problem, I would.”