Timothy Van Patten wrote the concerto that Stegman (Van Patten) plays.
In one of his early film roles, Michael J. Fox was billed as "Michael Fox", since he was having a registration problem with the Screen Actors Guild.
Mark L. Lester said the film was inspired by several true stories of school violence he had read about in papers. In particular, was a story of a teacher who brought a gun to class to control his students, the scene ended up in the film.