Precious Lives

Stories about kids, guns and how to stop the violence. Precious Lives, created by 371 Productions, is a 2-year, 100-part weekly radio series about gun violence and young people in the Milwaukee area. The series applies a public health lens to each story to help listeners understand the full scope of the problem: who are the victims and the shooters; how are the weapons obtained; and what can we change about the environment that contributes to violence in Milwaukee?

#048 Precious Lives: Alternative School Gives Kids Tools to Stop Fighting

WUWM 89.7 FM

Published December 15, 2015 at 10:45 AM CST

Marquette University Peace Works runs a cognitive restructuring exercises at Southeastern Education Center, a behavioral reassignment school for students expelled from Milwaukee Public Schools.

Within the last couple of years, Milwaukee Public Schools changed its policy around expulsion. In the past, students expelled for violent behavior would sit at home, often unsupervised, without help. Now, when kids get expelled, most for fighting, students get the opportunity to go to an alternative school.

Southeastern Education Cebter is a behavioral reassignment school for 6th through 8th graders. There are many tools built into the curriculum to stop fighting, and prepare kids to return to their regular MPS classes.

The kids need to prove that they can control violent impulses, if they want to go back to their old school. Three days a week, Pam Stahler from the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking teaches coping techniques to avoid violence.

Corresponding Content:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - School seeks new path for youths stuck in a world of trauma