Lately, school fights between students at Franklin High School have been more of a problem. Just last month, there were several fights. The fights happen from things as big as relationships to things as small as accidentally stepping on a person’s shoes. Fights can result in physical injuries and they cause disruptions to the school day, which is why school staff take them so seriously.
The FHS administration addresses fighting through student behavior interventions. “We do not promote fighting on campus at all,” Assistant Principal Tyrone Henderson said. “We always look…at interventions first before we suspend, … And I mean by interventions what can we do to assist the student to … not repeat the same behavior over again.”
To solve behavior problems, staff uses behavior training or other outlets that students can participate in so they won’t have to be suspended from school.
When looking at the situation, the staff will first look at what caused the fight to even start. After that, they look at the student’s past record to see what they can come up with. “We want students to be inside school to … attend class and get their education. Sending them home is not always … the first choice,” Henderson said.
When it comes to the efficiency of the policy, it’s going well because students are able to still get their education.
“When we do … have them stay home from school it’s because we want to [give] them the opportunity to diffuse the situation; some cooling off period and it’s used as a last-minute deterrence,” Henderson said.
Student fights can be on various things. So staff believe students can also step in to help stop and prevent fights.
“Communication is always the key. … This being a physical altercation that occurred on campus, this shouldn’t occur if students just talk to each other,” Henderson said, “We find that out afterward when we do our peer … conferences with the students.”
Students seem to fight before even knowing the full story behind things, most likely from peer pressure and/or the adrenaline rush. Usually, during the peer conferences, students learn things about the story that they didn’t even know had happened. Things like, “Oh I didn’t know that” usually occur. Sometimes though, it’s a reaction of “emotion gets the best of them” moment as Henderson said. “Students need … continue to learn to talk things through.”
Henderson said he believes that there should be more students approaching adults and talking it out rather than resorting to violence. There are many trustworthy adults here on campus who would help diffuse a situation.
Fights compared to last school year seemingly are the same but are more stabilized and more so under control than in past years. When it comes to actual altercations, there is more of a system that goes on.
“CSMs they’re the first line of defense. They’re there for preventive purposes … they try to [prevent things] that can lead to a physical altercation or any campus disruptions. They’re basically our first line of offense for everything.” Mr. Henderson says, “When CSMs are doing their thing … between officers, staff, the assistant principals… administration levels … and then we have other supports that try to help, like the counselors [who can address] the social-emotional things – they try to step in and help students as well.”
FHS students have a variety of resources available to them to help manage conflicts. Henderson said, “We utilize [the Wellness Center] as well to de-escalate situations that may be occurring due to some mental health issues.”
It seems student fights are slowly being taken care of but even so, it’s all up to their students and their own level of patience and communication.
