“School Safety” is tossed around a lot in public forums and media articles and is the catch-all phrase used by education and legislative officials that often includes topics like bullying, assaults of various kinds, school shootings, school resource officers (SROs), and fighting.
Fighting and violent behavior by students has steadily risen since kids returned to the classrooms after COVID lockdowns.
Mass brawls in the halls are now commonplace in most middle and high schools across the country and in North Carolina. In more cases than not, the fighting is filmed by students who are either part of the instigation or who are bystanders.
In January 2023, a local news station in Miami reported on a video showing a "Vicious beatdown" of a student at Miami Beach Senior High School.
A brawl between 4 to 6 students at a high school in Trenton, NJ on Jan. 13 required at least three SROs to break up. A female SRO was injured in doing so.
The same month on Jan. 17, Eight Spotsylvania, Virginia teenagers faced numerous charges after a large fight that included over 17 kids at Riverbend High School. The Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office says the charges range from malicious wounding, assault by mob, and assault and battery in the incident.
This kind of activity is happening in North Carolina as well.
The Consolidated NC School Crime report for the 2021-22 school year showed a 16.9% increase in reportable crimes over the previous year in which school closures were seen statewide. The report encompassed 11,170 crimes or acts of violence and possession of a controlled substance topped the list of offenses.
One case from October 2022 at Cummings High School located in Burlington was reported as a “knife fight.” Just under a year later, the student who was attacked filed a lawsuit against the Alamance-Burlington District and the teacher who was present. Makiya Bradsher, now 18 years old, was stabbed “nine times" in the head, neck, and chest area while the teacher allegedly did nothing to stop the attack.
Also last October, multiple videos of three violent brawls at High Point Central High were sent to the North State Journal by concerned parents. The High Point videos were preceded by dozens of disturbing student fights filmed by other students at a single school in Moore County.
This pattern of violence continued into 2023. Here are some of the highlights.
Jan. 31 - a 13-year-old was arrested for communicating a threat of mass violence on educational property related to a Wayne County Public Schools property.
Feb. 1 - Another gun was found on a student at a South Charlotte-Mecklenburg high school campus. Last year, 24 guns were confiscated in the CMS district in the first two months of school as documented by WBT reporter Brett Jensen.
Feb. 6 - Our family got its own taste of school threats when the middle school my youngest child attends sent a letter to parents informing us a student had made a threat to the school. The letter also said there were threat 'rumors' the week before which parents were NOT informed about.
Feb. 13 - A family in Charlotte filed a civil rights complaint against CMS after their daughter was assaulted by a mob of students in the middle of her school; Albemarle Middle School in east Charlotte. There is a video of the girl being assaulted.
Feb. 15 - A six-year-old student brought a loaded gun to Fairview Elementary in Rocky Mount.
Feb. 19 - Loaded gun found in 4th grade student’s backpack at a North Carolina elementary school (Erwin Elementary School)
Feb. 23 - An unidentified juvenile brought an AR-15 to a basketball game at Millbrook High School. The juvenile was not a student. Following the Millbrook incident, this headline appeared: 'It is alarming': Growing push for safety after series of guns found on campuses
Feb 24 - An SRO at Jordan High in Durham took a gun away from a 14-year-old student.
Mar. 16 - Durham Sherriff reports two incidents; one was an armed robbery at Lowe’s Grove Middle School and another was a tip a 14-year-old high schooler planned to bring a gun to school.
Separate from the Durham Sheriff’s reported incident, SROs at Hillside High School acted on a tip regarding a student who intended to bring a firearm onto campus and searched the vehicle of 18-year-old Zadi Obadiah Woodson. He has been charged with possession of a stolen firearm, possession of a firearm on educational property, and carrying a concealed firearm.
March 24 - The Durham Sherrif’s Office reported “18-year-old Samuel Scipione of Raleigh has been charged with three counts of communicating threats of mass violence on an educational property (Research Triangle High School in RTP).”
Per the Durham Sherriff’s press release, “When they arrived at the scene, it was determined that the youth had been dropped off in a stolen vehicle. During a search of the neighborhood, a deputy observed a single juvenile male in a ski mask walking on the 4900 block of Paces Ferry Dr. The 16-year-old was found to be in possession of the rifle which he had hidden in his pants, and was detained.”
May 24 - In Chatham County Schools, five students faced criminal charges for a school shooting threat at Chatham Middle School.
May 24 also saw an adult arrested– 27-year-old Danielle Symone Ward - for making a threat of mass violence against Herbert Akins Middle School in Wake County. The same day, Wake County Public Schools’ Alston Ridge Middle School received a bomb threat on a "Google document."
In the last year, the Wake County Public Schools Board of Education decided against adding more SROs and beefing up security on entry doors. Instead, it was decided the best use of the school safety funds obtained from the state was to crack down on visitors – a.k.a parents – with a new school visitor entry system where one has to show a government-approved ID for any campus activity other than entering the front office. The new system, Verkada, does not save access details on the user side, meaning anyone asking to enter the building must sign in on the website provided and capture their driver’s license or ID that is used to gain entry each time they want to enter their child’s school.
Sept. 11 - Durham Sheriff reports a lockdown at Northern High School over an “incident” where a student was injured and had to be taken to an area hospital. Three students were “detained for questioning.”
In a follow-up release to the Sept. 11 incident, the Sheriff's Office reported that deputies “obtained juvenile petitions for one 16-year-old male student on charges of possession of a weapon on school grounds and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury.”
Sept. 12 – A Wake County elementary school student brought a gun to school to show it off to his friends. The gun was found after students reported it and the mother was charged with a felony for allowing her kid access to the gun and for bringing it onto school property.
Sept. 25 - Two staff members at Hoke County High School were taken to the hospital Monday after a fight broke out among students, per HCHS principal Dr. Benson. There were three different fights that same day at HCHS.
While filmed “fight club” incidents like these are occurring, another disturbing trend has occurred: Young kids bringing guns to school.
Last December, Fuquay-Varina Middle School ELA teacher Lynn Guilliams faced a 12-year-old shooting out a window in her classroom.
The child's reason: "Because I hate this school and everything in it."
This past January, a 6-year-old brought a loaded gun to school in Virginia and shot his teacher in the torso. The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, filed a lawsuit against the school and district for failing to heed FOUR warnings about the same child.
Around that same time as the Fuquay-Varina incident, a School Safety Temporary training facility was being opened.
“The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) opened a new school security training facility in January through the Center for Safer Schools.
The temporary training facility is in Moore County, while NCDPI is in the process of developing a permanent facility in Montgomery County. Both will host training for school systems across the state.”
More To The Story
While the pandemic school closures have undoubtedly had a big impact on student mental health and are a part of the reason behind the rise in violent altercations at schools, there are other causes.
One such cause is the weakened discipline policies and “restorative justice” measures in lieu of actual discipline implemented by districts around the country prior to the pandemic that arguably has contributed to the Thunderdome atmosphere in schools being seen today.
This year, there seems to be a shift in these policy changes - prompted by teachers.
On Jan. 21, the Associated Press reported districts that were starting to reverse “restorative justice” policies. Teachers are speaking out about the rise in violence in schools, some of it directed at them. Here’s an excerpt from that article:
“Approaches such as “restorative justice” were adopted widely in recent decades as educators updated exclusionary policies that cut off students’ access to learning and disproportionately affected students of color.
But more students have been acting out, and some school systems have faced questions from teachers, parents and lawmakers about whether a gentle approach can effectively address problems that disrupt classrooms.
The latest example came this week in Newport News, Virginia, where teachers complained at a school board meeting that the school system where a 6-year-old shot his teacher had become too lenient with students. Students who assaulted staff were routinely allowed to stay in the classroom, they said, because of a misguided focus on keeping them in school.
The local school board said it would take “the necessary steps to restore public confidence” in the school system.
Both anecdotally and according to federal data, instances of misbehavior have been on the rise since students returned to classrooms from the COVID-19 pandemic. A National Center for Education Statistics survey of school leaders last summer found 56% of respondents said the pandemic led to increased classroom disruptions from student misbehavior and 48% said it led to more acts of disrespect toward teachers and staff.”
Restorative justice practices were adopted by a number of North Carolina districts prior to the pandemic. Policies on suspensions were also altered, such as those in Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS).
The effect of those practices and policy alterations lowered suspension rates for minority students though fights and other transgressions still occurred at typical rates. In other words, the numbers were artificially lowered.
In WCPSS, a lawsuit prompted those policy changes as part of a complaint filed by various activist groups over the so-called “school-to-prison-pipeline” (STPP) that posits Black students are disciplined at higher rates than their white or Asian peers. Such claims are based purely on data points and do not address the individual cases or whether such actions might be warranted. Nor does the STPP narrative ever look at parent involvement or lack thereof as a root cause.
As a result of the complaint filed against WCPSS, a settlement agreement was entered into with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. In that agreement, WCPSS created the Office of Equity Affairs (OEA).
The OEA office has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars with no accountability or reportable impact on the STPP or any area other than training teachers on how to weave Critical Race Theory into their classrooms.
This past month, the STPP narrative has been revived by the NC ACLU.
In a nutshell, the NC ALCU issued a report that uses federal data sets for the years spanning 2017 through 2022 — data before the pandemic and after.
The overall thrust of the report is to remove SROs entirely from schools and replace them with mental health professionals and school counselors.
Here’s the full list of “goals” per the report, one of which is “restorative justice”:
• Prioritize funding school-based mental health providers rather than police in schools.
• Invest in and expand state and local partnerships to increase the availability and number of culturally affirming school based mental health providers.
• Strengthen and further develop partnerships with community health workers to support mental health for youth.
• Reduce the use of punitive and exclusionary discipline and invest in evidence-based supportive practices and restorative justice.
• Provide teachers and school staff with training and resources to strengthen student-teacher relationships, build empathy mindsets, and enhance racial equity.
• Remove the presence of police in schools.
• Decriminalize typical childhood and adolescent behavior, including by repealing North Carolina’s law that criminalizes disorderly conduct in schools.
As I explained in a thread on X, the ACLU’s report centers that thesis on criminal statutes covering “disorderly conduct” instead of state statutes governing discipline in education.
Now imagine what would be the effect if there were no criminal repercussions for the incidents reported earlier in this article.
The report also has problematic cherry-picking of questionable citations that support the report’s overall push to “remove all cops” from schools while ignoring state-level, public feedback, and other data supporting SRO use in schools.
As with all STPP reports I’ve encountered, nowhere does the ACLU look beyond data sets to even consider or investigate whether or not the disciplinary actions it is criticizing were warranted.