This report offers a perspective on school violence and its pervasiveness as a local public-safety issue. It summarizes the responses of 700 cities and towns to a survey conducted by the National League of Cities (NLC) in 1994. Half of the nation's 200 largest cities responded, but the largest percentage of responses were from suburban and rural cities, with nearly 65 percent from places with populations below 50,000. Responses reveal that the growing level of concern about school violence has led to a significant allocation of local police resources to address the problem and includes prevention programs and a police presence at athletic events. This concern has also led to a rethinking of the roles and responsibilities of local-government policymakers as they consider the fact that school violence is a problem of substantial or growing significance in more than 80 percent of the nation's cities and towns. Serious injuries or deaths from violence at school occurred in 25 percent of the cities surveyed during the past year. Student and neighborhood gangs are regarded as a significant factor in a majority of medium and large cities. There is an increasing recognition that the problem of school safety is a problem that includes the total community. Nine tables present survey findings. (SLD)