After encountering aggressive gang-like activity at Reed High School at the beginning of his seven-year career as the school's assistant principal of discipline, Kris Hackbusch has found effective and efficient ways to deal with gang activity.

“I think what we have here at Reed specifically, you have a lot of want-to-be types of activity,” Hackbusch said. “You may have just a couple kids who may have been jumped in, like official gang members, and I could count them on one hand. But they have either changed their lives or don’t go to school here anymore.”

Hackbusch said that finding ways to deal with the influx of aggressive members of the Straight Edge movement led him to find better ways of dealing with gang-related activity at Reed.

“We don’t label a kid if they are in a gang, but we just keep tabs with the groups of students,” Hackbush said. “If you’re dealing with a student that might be involved in gangs you look for two indicators. Say they’re dressed in all red and then they wrote some gang stuff in their notebook.”

In addition to the dress code banning hats from being worn in the hallways, Hackbusch said he is suggesting Reed be used in a pilot program for school uniforms and that he has received positive feed back about the idea.

Reed has also taken steps to prevent students from joining gangs. In conjunction with the Washoe County School Police, the high school will recommend that students who are in not yet in a gang but are considering it attend the district’s Gang Resistance Intervention Program with a parent or guardian.

In addition to working with school police, Hackbusch said the school’s faculty and staff are using a technique called positive behavior support.

“Positive behavior support is basically the idea of creating a relationship with the kids,” Hackbusch said. “The whole idea is about being positive with the students and giving them respect.

“I have had kids that are mixed up with gangs that give me information on almost a daily basis to help keep the school safe,” Hackbusch said, adding that school staff received positive behavior support training in June.

Hackbusch said that creating friendly relationships with the students, partnered with safety measures such as locking classroom doors during class, has created a safer and happier environment. He said that in addition to gathering information from students, Hackbusch has seen upper classmen break up fights between lower classmen.

Hackbusch said he believes what is being used at Reed High School really works. He said that he had one student who had been removed from three high schools for gang-related activity and is now flourishing at Reed.

“Now he’s trying out for the varsity football team next season,” Hackbusch said with excitement about the student’s positive change.