The survey asked social workers who had reported a potentially lethal event in their schools within the previous year how they would rate the seriousness of the problem in their schools. The survey also attempted to determine what variables would be associated with the perception of a serious violence problem in a school. School social workers did not perceive violence as a serious problem on the basis of a single event even when the event was life-threatening. From a zero-tolerance perspective, school violence as a problem was underestimated in all communities but more often in suburban and rural settings than in inner-city or urban settings. The social workers' perception of a serious problem was contingent on the presence of multiple types of violence and the community setting of the school. The article advocates a zero-tolerance perspective and asserts that knowledge of any form of physical assault or potentially lethal violence should be sufficient to determine that a school has a big problem. Tables, figures, references