Coping in the Middle Of a War Zone At Jefferson High

By Ellen Flax

NEW YORK CITY--For a principal who lost five of her students to violent deaths in a single week last month, Carol A. Beck is a decided optimist.

Ms. Beck is the principal of Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, which became a national symbol of growing in-school violence when two students were fatally shot in its corridors last month. But instead of dwelling on the tragedy, Ms. Beck has begun to focus on her next project: creating a garden out of a garbage-strewn lot that adjoins the school.

The garden, which Ms. Beck plans to have dedicated this spring, will serve as a memorial to the more than 50 students from her school who have died at the wrong end of a gun since she became principal five years ago. She said that many of her students from Brooklyn's East New York, where the wrong look or a simple insult can provoke gunfire, have become too numb to enjoy life and to appreciate...