by Jackson Zeunik

Assistant Principals Address Concerns Over Student Safety

A single punch can change the course of your life forever. Fights happen in high schools all the time, yet students rarely see the negative effects these fights have on the school as a whole.

Fights can negatively affect the school’s image and follow students for the rest of their lives. Assistant Principal Aaron Willis and Dean of Students Briana Temple address the impacts that fights have on students – not only involved in the fights, but those who lose privileges due to those students.

Emotions can run high with rumors and other day-to-day stressors of school, Temple said, but she rather students talk to her before doing anything drastic. She said she acts as a mediator when students utilize this option.

“So, what I’ve done is, first, thank the student for coming to me and taking that proactive approach to wanting to figure out a resolution,” Temple said. “I would reach out to the other student, talk to them and get their side. I ask all parties; would you be willing to sit down at the table where we try to hash everything out.”

Temple said she wants students to have input in the measures that are put in place to prevent fights.“

We are working now to discuss different restorative practices that we can put in place here at the school,” Temple said. “I want to hear from the students, what do you all think we should do? I don’t want to just make decisions, and it may not even work for you all.”

Willis said fights impact his job of keeping students safe and wants to do something to end the fights himself. “I think that, first and foremost, is just student safety, safety for the kids involved in the altercation, and safety for the students that are nearby and around,” Willis said. “I think when those things happen, the first thing I want to do [is] I’m a person that likes to get in the thick of things, so I’m trying to break it up.”

67% of U.S. public schools reported violent activity on campus.

_{National Center for Education Statistics}

Feelings lead to fights most of the time but when deciding punishment Willis said they try to make it as fair as possible.

“At the end of the day, there’s not a lot of feelings in terms of if someone breaks a policy or an expectation of what the school has,” Willis said. “The part that’s hard is in a lot of these things, it impacts student opportunity, opportunity for them to get an education, opportunity for them to get a job, and opportunity to have a life outside of high school.”

Social media and a culture of oversharing online has led to video recordings of fights becoming more circulated than ever before.

“The thing about video recording that kids must remember is, if you do get into a fight, you’ll never be able to get away from it, it’s always going to be there,” Willis said. “There are kids that were freshmen, and they’re trying to go off to college, and they find out they can’t because there’s a video circulating of them getting into a fight.”

Willis said video recordings not only leave a paper trail for the students involved in the fight but negatively reflect on the recorder themselves by not helping their classmates.

“It’s lame. It’s 100% lame, because you could be doing the right thing by trying to ensure that they don’t get into altercation,” said Willis.

High school is an experience that Willis said he wants students to absorb the full effect of everyday. He said that administrators know how school can play into students lives outside of high school.

“High school is a fun time, but it’s not forever. So why would you mess up the rest of your life over something that’s so minimal,” Willis said.

This story first appeared in the December 2024 print edition of The Echo.