Pre-pandemic, educators didn’t have to worry too much about school fights, let alone having to break them up. But since post-pandemic violence has been at an all-time high, reports indicate that 37% of public schools in the south strongly agree that the pandemic has negatively impacted the behavioral development of students at their school by region. If students’ behavioral development is being negatively impacted it can and will cause more violence in schools, and when violence happens in schools’ teachers can’t teach, and if students can’t learn the cycle of violence can continue.
But at times this violence isn’t only directed between two students as we see most of the time, violence in school also affects staff members of these schools, there have been reports that school violence at times has been between students and teachers, with a student being agitated by something and/or someone, and as a result, taking those frustrations out on the educator. From a student holding a teacher in a chokehold in Utah, a student at a North Carolina high school being fatally stabbed, and a teacher aide in Florida being attacked for taking a student’s switch to the point of unconsciousness, the violence doesn’t seem to end.
Mr. Murphy, the official school safety/security officer of 7 years, explained how it has affected his work and the environment for students and staff. He explained how he’s noticed an increase of change in student behavior since post-pandemic as well as the increase of rowdiness outside the classroom, and in regards to school violence, he stated “We like to be ahead of that, we’d like to be proactive. We would like to prevent fights from happening.” “We do meet with students often. It’s not unusual for students to come to me and say “I’m having conflict with so and so. I don’t know what to do. I think it may be an issue.” So typically, we will meet with the students. We’ll talk to them, we’ll get the side of the story, and lots of times we’ll do mediation with them.”
He also explained how they do handle fights whenever they do occur, explaining how they will respond to it and as he stated “It’s an emergency for us. We’re going to go to it. We’re going to stop it. as quickly as possible.” “Our main goal is we don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He also explained how they will make sure those students get what medical care they need as well as figuring out what happened.
Not only has the violence increased, but the housing inside juvenile detention centers has also been having housing issues, with them not having enough space. Such as the hem not having enough space. Such as juvenile detention in Pennsylvania having a shortage of beds, with PA lawmakers on a time crunch to figure out the best plan to solve this problem, but with limited resources, it’s been difficult for them, and with more violence happening in schools, these students don’t have a place to stay during their punishment, and can often end up in prison which will not improve these students, and can potentially even make their violent tendencies increase as a study by have shown how the environment of ASPE prison can change a person. Even with security guards, and the addition of some schools like Patriot High School putting up Evolvs or even metal detectors, violence can still occur in these schools, and even though COVID has had such a negative impact on students we can still better ourselves, and steps can be taken to improve the school environment to keep students away from violence and keep them focused on bettering their community and learning, so that we can stop this violent cycle, and improve the education system for generations to come.
