fights at Columbia

FWIW, my 10th grade daughter told me that the sudden upsurge of fighting has something to do with "gangs." That doesn't seem to fit with what Butterflylover's daughter experienced, and it may just be the crazy rumor mill that is high school.

It seems to be recent. Kid number one graduated last year and never had any issues. I will say that there is a crop of bad actors at MMS in the last few years, some of whom might now be at CHS, spreading the love. This really sucks, because CHS can be an amazing place.

afa said:
So, genuine question: is there anything we can do about the violence in the schools? Has this been a long-term problem or is it a more recentissue? Because none of this is ok.

That is a legitimate question and I would like to know the answer to that too. I would love to stand in front of the BOE and bring it up but the next meeting is not until June 15th and at the meeting you are only allowed 2 minutes of speaking time. This is a problem because they do not even comment or give any feedback on these public speaking issues. However, as a community we should get together somewhere/somehow and discuss this with solutions to the problems at hand. The first thing is to get the school administrators on the same page as the community because they are the ones dealing with this and clearly it is overwhelming!

Rivoli said:
FWIW, my 10th grade daughter told me that the sudden upsurge of fighting has something to do with "gangs." That doesn't seem to fit with what Butterflylover's daughter experienced, and it may just be the crazy rumor mill that is high school.

Supposedly two of the girls are gang affiliated but my daughter is not and will never be! I am an active parent and I monitor them!! I do not tolerate this behavior at all!

Butterflylover said:

Rivoli said:
FWIW, my 10th grade daughter told me that the sudden upsurge of fighting has something to do with "gangs." That doesn't seem to fit with what Butterflylover's daughter experienced, and it may just be the crazy rumor mill that is high school.

Supposedly two of the girls are gang affiliated

This just keeps getting better. Holy crap.

I'm on board to attend any meetings or join any parent groups to address this. I agree it is not okay and you don't have to be an assault victim to be negatively impacted by this. The rowdy behavior last month that I reported (it was a fire evacuation) is an indication that they can't control the kids.

NizhoniGrrrl said:
I'm on board to attend any meetings or join any parent groups to address this. I agree it is not okay and you don't have to be an assault victim to be negatively impacted by this. The rowdy behavior last month that I reported (it was a fire evacuation) is an indication that they can't control the kids.

GREAT! I agree it does not have to be an assault victim because essentially it is affecting ALL of our children. Someone mentioned their child having anxiety in this thread because of all these fights and stuff.

callista said:
We had a separate high school for troubled teens, including the more violent ones, who obviously need to be kept more in a lockdown kind of situation.Didn't we used to have one at Montrose? That is now on the CHS campus.

From what I understand, that isn't really what was at Montrose. Although there may have been some kids there because of discipline issues, I knew of many that just couldn't succeed in the large school environment at CHS. The "alternative school" (which I believe still exists on the CHS campus) allowed more flexible approaches (self-pacing, etc.) to completing the high school diploma requirements. At least, several who were friends of my child were in that situation and I was led to believe that was the norm there.

Thanks for the info. That makes sense. In the tiny bit of time I spent searching, it seems this is becoming a problem in a lot of schools. We need to hatch a viable plan for early intervention and for separation for those unable to control their violent tempers.

callista said:
Thanks for the info. That makes sense. In the tiny bit of time I spent searching, it seems this is becoming a problem in a lot of schools. We need to hatch a viable plan for early intervention and for separation for those unable to control their violent tempers.

I am with you on that!

So what are the consequences for kids who assault other students? My admittedly incomplete understanding of the law is that if you attack someone, that's a crime and you should be arrested. Clearly it's not enough to be handling all these assaults as "discipline issues" within the school. The law shouldn't be suspended on school property--if anything, I want my kid to feel safer IN school than they do walking home from school. If a child is assaulted (and these are all children, even in high school), regardless if it happened on school property or on the street somewhere else, the police should be called. Is there a reason that the school doesn't have a no-tolerance policy for this kind of thing?

afa said:
So what are the consequences for kids who assault other students? My admittedly incomplete understanding of the law is that if you attack someone, that's a crime and you should be arrested. Clearly it's not enough to be handling all these assaults as "discipline issues" within the school. The law shouldn't be suspended on school property--if anything, I want my kid to feel safer IN school than they do walking home from school. If a child is assaulted (and these are all children, even in high school), regardless if it happened on school property or on the street somewhere else, the police should be called. Is there a reason that the school doesn't have a no-tolerance policy for this kind of thing?

Here is a link to the SOMSD's policy on fighting and consequences:

http://www.somsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib7/NJ01001050/Centricity/Domain/3/Code%20of%20Conduct%20-%20Updated%204-8-14.pdf

Although it identifies fighting as Tier 3 & 4, the consequences do not seem to be very effective or severe.

Well none of that is serious enough. Maybe that's an okay Code of Conduct for a school with relatively few infractions, but from what I've read here throughout the past couple of years, our schools need a much more clear-cut and serious list of consequences for particular issues. Fighting and theft, in particular. Both of those should immediately be a Tier 4. No questions. That whole document is way too wishy washy.

Any kids that do not live in the district must not be allow to attend our Schools at all. I think the School district must have special School just for of the kids that are physically abusive. This way these kids can get the help they so desperately need as well as an education. Then the other kids at Columbia won't afraid of getting physically assaulted and or killed by another student and having their possession that they must have at School stolen from them. School must be safe places were all student can learn.

This is not a problem just on school grounds and during the school day, therefore we as a community should also ask the police and the families of students what they are doing to address this rise in teen violence. We cannot expect the administration of CHS or MMS to deal with this on their own. They did not create the problem and they cannot create a safe environment without our support and pro-active police work.

An emergency Board meeting seems a good start, but the police leadership, the PTO, and other "shareholders" should be there as well.

Our children deserve to be safe in school and everywhere else.

One place to start is to proactively ask for a response from the administration to our concerns about the current climate of violence and aggression in the school. To me this means we need to write emails to the Principal, the HSA, the Superintendent and the police department. We need to ask for increased transparent communication about how these legitimate concerns are being currently addressed and what proactive plans are being put into place for the immediate and long term future to ensure that our students are safe and that the focus at CHS can be on education.

We can take some of the time we are spending talking to each other here to reach out - if enough of us do it perhaps it will become clear that we are concerned and expect some responsiveness

AliGrant said:
One place to start is to proactively ask for a response from the administration to our concerns about the current climate of violence and aggression in the school. To me this means we need to write emails to the Principal, the HSA, the Superintendent and the police department asking for our concerns to be addressed. We need to ask for increased transparent communication about how these legitimate concerns are being currently addressed and what proactive plans are being put into place for the immediate and long term future to ensure that our students are safe and that the focus at CHS can be on education.
We can take some of the time we are spending talking to each other here to reach out - if enough of us do it perhaps it will become clear that we are concerned and expect some responsiveness

I agree! I have reached out to the school. My husband has been at the school everyday this week and they are not giving him any answers as to the repercussions of the children that assaulted my daughter. I am going to the next step. I will reach out to the principal, this time by email and I will include the the MPD Youth Detective on the email as well as the superintendent. Anyone else concerned about their children I ask that you all please reach out to them as well! Thank you all!

My CHS'er reported to me that all of the fights have involved freshmen.

Hi everyone,
I'm Deidra McLaughlin - parent of a sophmore son, and a member of the CHS HSA board. I am so sorry about what I'm reading here and very upset about this as well. My son can't believe what's going on either lately. I have received correspondence from a concerned parent and have called for an emergency "town hall" meeting with Principal, Deans and police, immediately to address this before someone gets seriously hurt or worse. If anyone needs to reach me directly to help facilitate communications, please inbox me here. We need to put a stop to this NOW! I don't want any more students shaken up - just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever I can do to help, I will.

trinity said:
Hi everyone,
I'm Deidra McLaughlin - parent of a sophmore son, and a member of the CHS HSA board. I am so sorry about what I'm reading here and very upset about this as well. My son can't believe what's going on either lately. I have received correspondence from a concerned parent and have called for an emergency "town hall" meeting with Principal, Deans and police, immediately to address this before someone gets seriously hurt or worse. If anyone needs to reach me directly to help facilitate communications, please inbox me here. We need to put a stop to this NOW! I don't want any more students shaken up - just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever I can do to help, I will.

Thank you!!! I sent you a message.

Thank you, Deidra!!!!!!

I find it surprising that commenters are blaming out-of-district students. How do you know that as fact?

Deidra-- That's fantastic. But, and not to minimize your efforts or the importance of your initiative here nor to suggest it mustn't happen (oh, it certainly should, and thank you for it), this meeting should have come immediately from the acting Super and BOE.

Liz (and I'm sure the deans) do what they can, but his is not their issue to directly solve...it's bigger than them it seems, and clearly pervasive outside of CHS.

There have been multiple incidents the past week alone, some cited above and some not, and yes with some seriously hurt, not even including the offensive, taunting mayhem at CHS today. This is getting nuts.

krugle1 said:
I find it surprising that commenters are blaming out-of-district students. How do you know that as fact?

Age-old argument. If someone has known and they're still here to act like savages, then some of the blame lies squarely on those failing to report, unless the vetting/transfer is still in process. Else it's BS.

@BaseballMom: my senior reports the same - freshmen.

@trinity /Deirdre - thank you.

Someone has made (and kids are sending it around)a montage of all the fights and set it to anachronistically sweet music - so upsetting to see

Pathetic.

Any word about why a student was suspended for defending herself while the attacking students remained at school?

@Butterflylover, good luck; however I would have started with the police and principal and worked my way down had anyone laid a finger on my child at what is supposed to be a safe place. What kind of institution lets this happen without emergency action? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE.

My son doesn't go to this school but said the fights are all over social media/snap chat...almost laughing at it. I'm so sorry for all your children involved, or scared. This behavior is horrible for our kids, which is the saddest part of it all, and horrible for our town also.

Starsong said:
@Butterflylover, good luck; however I would have started with the police and principal and worked my way down had anyone laid a finger on my child at what is supposed to be a safe place. What kind of institution lets this happen without emergency action? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE.
My son doesn't go to this school but said the fights are all over social media/snap chat...almost laughing at it. I'm so sorry for all your children involved, or scared. This behavior is horrible for our kids, which is the saddest part of it all, and horrible for our town also.

I'm curious why you think: 1) That there is no emergency action; and 2) that there is no outrage

Do you think everyone needs to type their outrage in ALL CAPS on MOL or it doesn't exist?

If you think the CHS principal is not operating in "emergency" mode at this moment, you know nothing about CHS and its leadership.

ctrazka, you're exactly right about this coming from the BOE but I think our Principal and Deans who are in the frontlines of this everyday, should initiate this.