Fights starting to affect school life for students, staff; stakeholders share thoughts

by Kaylah W.

The number of fights and the frequency of them are starting to really get out of hand. While more and more students are fighting, the more the school takes things away from the other students, as well as staff members. There has been a major increase in fights this year. There have been more than five major fights already and the quarter isn’t even over.

While there have been many fights at AHS already this quarter, not only are the one’s fighting getting punished; many students not participating in fights feel like they are being punished for the actions of others, and it's not even their fault.

For example, during homecoming week, there were many fights and although the ones that started the fight got punished so did the entire rest of the school. Because of those incidents that happened that week, so the homecoming pep rally was canceled due to the concern that there might be more fights that could possibly happen during the gathering for the pep rally.

Although the teachers can’t predict when flights will take place, many students feel as though they shouldn’t have things taken away from them just because of the behavior of other students. “I don’t even know why there wasn’t a pep rally, when the kids that started the fights already got sent home, they could’ve still had it,” said Naashon F., a student at AHS.

Homecoming week is just one example of the outcome from these fights. After these fights took place the school upped their security. The school has more cops then there was in the beginning of the school year, especially during the lunches.

Not only are the students having concerns on the fights happening this year and their outcomes, so are the teachers and staff.

When asked about the fights taking place at AHS and their outcomes Ms. Muller, one of the librarians at AHS states,” I don’t think that the school will become more strict,” meaning that students and staff shouldn’t worry about the school taking more things away. She also states, “ I think it's unfortunate that the actions of a few impact an entire school.”

So while many students are concerned about the fights being a factor of things being taken away, some of the teachers believe that “if more students felt that they had more at stake, they would care about the disturbance they are causing their community,” said by an anonymous source.

“Many students that are exhibiting this behavior are usually doing this because they feel like their school isn’t their community, if the students felt more a part of the community they would feel more cautious when disturbing their community," said an anonymous source.

Are the fights really impacting the community in a bad way and if so what can be done to make sure everyone feels welcome and safe when coming to school, even the ones that are in those fights?

For interesting data about fights in schools, check out the website here.