San Benito High School has seen an increase in student fights in
the past year and administrators say they don’t know where to place
the blame. More high schoolers have also been suspended for using
drugs and alcohol on campus as well as threatening other students
compared to previous years, according to a behavior report
presented during Wednesday night’s Board of Trustees’ meeting.
Hollister – San Benito High School has seen an increase in student fights in the past year and administrators say they don’t know where to place the blame. More high schoolers have also been suspended for using drugs and alcohol on campus as well as threatening other students compared to previous years, according to a behavior report presented during Wednesday night’s Board of Trustees’ meeting.
While there were 50 fights that ended in suspension last year, that number has jumped to 61 this year, according to the report that was compiled by three assistant principals at the school. Suspensions for possession of drugs or alcohol has also risen from 21 to 30.
The findings indicate what teachers and students have known for a while: kids today are getting harder to rein in.
“As the school gets bigger, we need to realize that some kids won’t always agree with others,” said Duane Morgan, one of the three assistant principals at San Benito High School.
Morgan didn’t deny the school faced a problem, but said the administration had stepped up efforts to combat the problem, from urging students to seek conflict resolution to speaking with members of student government in hopes that they would pass the message of nonviolence to their peers.
Administrators have also stepped up their presence in the school’s quad, where many of the fights occur, and are urging the school to put in security cameras to be their eyes and ears where they can’t always be, according to the report. Although the school has discussed using security cameras to prevent graffiti and respond to fights quicker, none have been placed.
As a response to the increased fights, both administrators and students have received harassment training, said Debbie Padilla, principal of San Benito High School.
“We’ve established communication with students; we’ve put the information in bulletins to let them know it’s not OK to verbally attack another student,” she said.
Although the assistant principals’ report did not break down the number of fights by gender, some teachers and administrators have said that many of them are initiated by girls.
“A great majority of fights start with rumors…one girl talks about her experience with a boy and another girl finds out and approaches her about it,” said Rachel Flores, a teacher at San Benito High School. “They don’t know how to resolve the problem and that’s when the fights happen.”
Others said the increase in fights was a result of students losing respect for school rules, which aren’t always enforced by the administration.
“Kids have no boundaries anymore,” said Chris Cameron, physical education teacher at the school. “I see them wearing hats and standing around at 8:30 am instead of going to class.”
Cameron added that many students who are given detention don’t take it seriously and as a result, fail to learn from their infractions.
School officials have been discussing changes to the detention process for several months, said Padilla.
Karina Ioffee covers education and agriculture for the Free Lance. Reach her at (831)637-5566 ext. 335 or ki*****@fr***********.com
