ANTI-VIOLENCE EFFORT ROSE FROM RESEDA HIGH SLAYING.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

When Micheal Ensley was fatally shot at Reseda High School by a fellow student known to be carrying a gun, teachers, students and parents knew something had to change.

Kids knew the shooter had been carrying a weapon but told no one - until Ensley, 17, was dead.

What's changed in the six years since Ensley's slaying is that it is much easier for students to snitch - to tell on classmates who are carrying weapons to school.

Through a campus club called Weapons Are Removed Now, students learn that weapons kill and that informing on students who carry them to school is the only moral choice. They spread the message through skits to elementary students across Los Angeles.

Ensley's death was a high price to pay, but students who never knew him say the program is a positive legacy that can save other lives.

``We started from a tragedy, and for us it worked. But now we want to get it out to other schools so they don't have to have a tragedy,'' said Erik Ceja, a senior in WARN.

Model program

The program has gained national recognition. Students and teachers have spoken at town hall meetings across California, and WARN has been profiled in juvenile justice and crime prevention guides.

In the aftermath of the slayings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., school officials from Texas to New York are turning to Reseda for help on breaking the code of silence about weapons on campus.

One of those calls came from Charles Harrison, superintendent of the Brownfield Consolidated Independent School District. There are fewer students in all the small west Texas town's schools than in the Reseda student body.

``I don't think anyone is immune from school violence anymore,'' Harrison said. ``We are on a limited budget and don't have too much money for metal detectors or security cameras.

``We're hoping that we could teach our kids that it's OK to tell on someone when violence might be an issue. In prevention, we will use all the tools necessary.''

The Colorado tragedy triggered both pain and frustration on the Reseda campus. Similar reactions followed school killings in Kentucky, Arkansas, Oregon and elsewhere since Reseda joined the list of campuses impacted by shooting deaths.

Students were moved to pen poems. Two giant poster-paper condolence cards will be completed and mailed to Columbine officials.

``Anytime something like that happens, it touches every single one of us, because that could be us,'' said Marianna Sadikian, a senior who helped lead a discussion about school violence in her economics class the day after the Colorado killings.

Sadikian said she hoped that school killings wouldn't shatter the image of school as a safe haven. She also hoped they would reinforce the school community's vigilance to prevent violence.

``I think people try to be aware, but it fades. You have to take precautions. Here, if someone acts out of the ordinary, it would have been noticed.''

Breaking code of silence

Getting students to trust teachers and administrators with information about someone bringing a weapon or planning violence on campus is the central and controversial element of WARN, said Jay Shaffer, the history and government teacher who created the program in the weeks following Ensley's killing.

What frustrated and angered Shaffer was that a half-dozen or so students knew Ensley's assailant had a gun. The Littleton massacre hit too close to home.

``There's nobody around planning to do something like Littleton who doesn't talk about it. It comes down to, do you take them seriously and do you tell someone about it?'' Shaffer said. ``You have to tell somebody. The stakes are too high.''

That the Reseda program is gaining notice following another school shooting, including an appearance by students and Principal Robert Kladifko on the ``Leeza'' show, is bittersweet for club members.

``The thing that bothers me is when there's a tragedy, everyone brings it up. That's what we're trying to prevent,'' said Ivon Gamboa, the WARN club president.

Yet Gamboa and others in the WARN troupe are sure their efforts will help younger students turn away from violence as they get older. Employing skits, raps and personal experiences, they provide students a realistic way to deal with weapons on campus and peer pressure.

The troupe acts out scenarios to make their point. In one, a boy angered by bullying tells a friend he will shoot the student bothering him. When the boy shoots, he misses the student and wounds his friend.

In a second scenario, a boy in a similar situation tells a friend who warns a teacher, helping to stop the confrontation before shots are fired.

``Sometimes they joke around and you have to get serious and explain that a weapon doesn't help, it hurts, it's no way to solve a problem,'' Gamboa said.

Even tougher is instilling values that make telling on someone a virtue.

``Somehow we all have that code of silence. For all teen-agers, every young person, it's the worst thing to be a snitch,'' Gamboa said. ``When you get the feedback and they're asking questions, then you know you're getting the point across.''

One of the program's fervent supporters is Margaret Ensley. She lost her son to the very gun violence she sought to protect him from by sending him on a school bus daily from South Central Los Angeles to Reseda.

``It's a good message. They've got to first of all understand what violence is all about and how they fit into that scenario, and they've really got to feel empowered to do something about it,'' she said.

Ensley also keeps her son's legacy alive by advocating school crime prevention, youth intervention programs and tougher laws for violent juvenile offenders. She established Mothers Against Violence in Schools with another mother whose son was shot at a Los Angeles Unified School District high school.

``I knew if I didn't do something, some other child was going to succumb just like Micheal,'' she said.

Having retired as an area sales manager for AT&T last year, Ensley has more time for her cause. Her motto: ``One person can't do everything, but one person can do something.''

So the Colorado slayings were a frustrating reminder that the threat of violence is forgotten until the next wake-up call.

``It's almost like hitting the snooze alarm button until it happens again,'' she said. ``When it happens again, all I can do is stand in the middle of the room and scream to the tops of my lungs. It's a pain that never goes away. I know what those parents are going to go through.''

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PHOTO (color) Weapons Are Removed Now members, with teacher Jay Shaffer, work to keep guns from Reseda High.

Gus Ruelas/Daily News