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# New school ‘tools’ try to teach kids how to play nice
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/new-school-tools-try-to-teach-kids-how-to-play-nice/
- Published: 2003-01-06T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:16:24.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*District combats name-calling, bullying with experimental program*

Outside the principal’s office at Roosevelt Elementary School one recent afternoon, two guilty-looking kids sat on opposite sides of a wooden bench waiting for the inevitable.

But when a teacher finally approached the two children, it wasn’t to punish them but to reinforce the values of a new experimental program aimed at confronting violence among students.

“Why didn’t you close your door?” the teacher asked one child. Then looking at the other, she asked, “And why didn’t you use your stop sign and exit?”

The program, called “Cool Tools,” teaches kids strategies for successfully dealing with name-calling and bullying. The teacher was going over strategies kids are being taught on how to prevent a conflict from escalating into a fight — which in this case was over a soccer ball being kicked over a fence.

Cool Tools was developed by educators at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education. It’s being tried out for the first time with Roosevelt fourth graders, and if it’s successful, the program could spread quickly to schools nationwide.

Since September, students have been taught the real world impacts of the playground scuffles and name-calling that is all too common at schools across the country.

They are told teasing other students about their weight can lead to eating disorders and even death. Teachers explain how picking on others who seem different can ruin their lives before they have even begun.

Those might seem like heavy concepts for fourth graders to digest, but to Ann “Ava” De La Sota — the UCLA professor who developed Cool Tools — it’s a dialogue that has to begin in elementary school.

“By the time they get to junior high, their hormones take over and there’s almost no getting in at that point,” she said. “Adolescence is a cruel act of God, it could have been handled better.”

“No, we need to reach our children at the elementary school level, when their minds are still open and we can get them to instinctively react when they’re put into a difficult situation,” the professor said.

> “No, we need to reach our children at the elementary school level, when their minds are still open and we can get them to instinctively react when they’re put into a difficult situation.” — — ANN DE LA SOTA UCLA professor, ‘Cool Tools’ developer

Roosevelt is nestled among one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Santa Monica, where million-dollar homes line quiet, tree-shrouded streets. Its students — who boast some of the highest test scores in the district — are a mix of children from the wealthy homes north of Montana Avenue and luxury apartments and condominium complexes north of Wilshire Boulevard.

But if Columbine taught America anything, it’s that the worst things can happen in the best communities.

After the spate of suburban high school shootings devastated the nation, the United States Secret Service profiled the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, among others regionally, and found high levels of tension between students, said school district administrators.

Alarmed local educators cracked down on students found fighting and name-calling, but the undercurrents remained. In an attempt to better understand student anxiety, administrators began interviewing those caught fighting and picking on others.

“We found they felt alienated from their peers,” said Marolyn Freedman, the school district’s safe schools/pupil services coordi-nator. “In some cases, they had been teased and picked on to the breaking point.”

To counteract any potential acts of violence, administrators knew they had to make students feel more connected to the community. Kids who feel connected tend to fit in better with their peers, perform better academically and become more attached to their school, Freedman said.

That’s where De La Sota came into the picture. She had developed Cool Tools at a UCLA laboratory school called Seeds University Elementary, where fighting has been almost eliminated and name-calling is rare. With the program’s early success, De La Sota began looking for an elementary school where she could set up a pilot program.

At Roosevelt, De La Sota said she found an economically and racially diverse school in an open-minded district with an emphasis on safe schools. It was exactly what she was looking for.

UCLA put up $7,500 to run the pilot program. Cool Tools is relatively cheap to run because its most expensive component is a tool box of about $100 worth of props. Each object in the tool box is a metaphor, representing a principal of the program.

One exercise has a teacher squirt out a tube of toothpaste. Volunteer students are selected from the class to try to put the paste back in. When the kids realize it’s futile, the teacher explains it’s the same with insults — once they are squirted into the open, they can never be put back.

Teachers must go through several hours of training with De La Sota on the curriculum and learn how to use classroom incidents as they happen to teach the program’s concepts. According to De La Sota, it’s at these times when the meaning of the program is most likely to sink in with kids.

“It doesn’t always happen in the classroom; it’s in the hallways, at the water fountain or on the playground,” she said. “These put-downs that kids use today are so cruel I don’t want anybody to be subjected to them.”

“We’re taking a moral stance and telling our kids teasing and picking on others is not OK,” she said.

Many parents of Roosevelt students say they have been noticing a difference. Mary Beth DeLucia said she believes her child feels less threatened and seems to enjoy going to school more.

“I’m so glad they are trying something,” she said. “As most parents know, the playground can be an emotional war zone for our kids, and anything the school can do to lessen that is a major help.”

> “As most parents know, the playground can be an emotional war zone for our kids, and anything the school can do to lessen that is a major help.” — — MARY BETH DELUCIA Parent

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 6, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/010603.pdf?ref=smdp.com)