RALEIGH — Since the end of the pandemic, videos from around the country of public school students fighting on school grounds have increasingly found their way onto social media platforms.
The most recent example making national headlines involved a school staffer who was injured during a violent student brawl at Brockton High School in Massachusetts. According to a report by the New York Post, the school has seen a series of such altercations prompting school committee members to request the governor send in the National Guard to help overwhelmed staff members.
The same type of fighting and videos of student altercations have also been seen occurring in North Carolina’s public schools.
In 2021, North State Journal documented videos of students fighting in Guilford County Public Schools landed on X, Instagram and Tik-Tok. The following year in Moore County Public Schools, a series of more than a dozen fights that took place at a single middle school were uploaded to social media.
In the past month, three videos of fights that allegedly took place on the campus of Wilmington’s Laney High School in New Hanover County Public Schools were posted to X by Natosha Tew, a candidate for New Hanover County’s school board and the chapter chair for the New Hanover County Moms for Liberty.
The first video posted by Tew shows a fight in a Laney High hallway that Tew said in her post happened on Feb. 8 during the school’s “enrichment period.” Tew said the video was sent to her by a Laney staffer who wished to remain anonymous.
https://twitter.com/NHCMoms4Liberty/status/1757254434462048340
The second video uploaded by Tew to X was also apparently taken at Laney High and allegedly occurred last fall, on Oct. 24.
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This is another video that was shared with me by an employee at @NewHanoverCoSch
who wishes to remain anonymous.This fight occurred as kids were waiting for the after school buses. Incidents like this are all too common in our schools and are the real life… pic.twitter.com/mhJ2egh6MQ
— Natosha Tew (@NHCMoms4Liberty) February 24, 2024
On Feb. 28, Tew posted a third video, also from Laney High School. The description in Tew’s X post says the incident occurred on Oct. 25, 2023.
https://twitter.com/NHCMoms4Liberty/status/1763025098527695198
Tew told North State Journal that the rise in fights, and those recorded, are because of several factors, and she has used the instances as part of her platform in the race for the school board seat.
“Violent altercations occur weekly, and sometimes even daily, on school premises,” she said. “This unruly, disrespectful and violent behavior towards fellow students, and even school employees, is a direct result of the restorative justice policies currently in place, the racist woke ideology being taught in our classrooms, and the lack of serious consequences for such abhorrent behavior. It is time to bring truth, common sense and discipline back to our schools.”
A teacher who has worked at Laney High but wished not to be identified by name in an interview with North State Journal agreed fights at Laney are a near “daily” occurrence.
“I feel like the public doesn’t want to have to know about it. And once they see it, they’re like, ‘Oh, my God.’ They’re horrified,” the teacher said. “But the repeat offenders, they go home and their parents will swear that it wasn’t their fault.”
The teacher also claimed drugs are a big problem at Laney.
“You know it’s the gangs and the drugs … and the parents are either part of it or just turn a blind eye,” the teacher alleged. “And the part of society that wouldn’t approve doesn’t want to have to know what’s going on. They’d rather just stay in their little bubble and think that the world’s great and they don’t want to have to know the realities of it.”
North State Journal reached out to the district for comment and received nearly the same reply for both of our inquiries on the first two videos.
“Thank you for reaching out,” wrote Salvatore Cardella, a communications employee with New Hanover County Public Schools. “While we do not typically comment on specific student disciplinary matters, I want to emphasize that the safety and well-being of our students are paramount concerns for us.
“We consistently assess and refine our policies and procedures to uphold the highest safety standards for all members of our school community. Your interest in our commitment to student safety is appreciated.”
Included in one of Cardella’s responses were “additional resources” such as the New Hanover County Schools website’s “About Us” page, with directions to access the Laney High “School Behavior Plan,” which mirrors the district’s student code of conduct, specifically Policy Code: 4331 Assaults and Threats.
Policy 4331 says fighting and similar conduct are “prohibited” and refers to another policy section with “consequences” that can be anything from “student mediation” to “long-term suspension.”
In both inquiries made by North State Journal, Cardella did not address whether or not the videos occurred on Laney High’s campus.
The past two school years in New Hanover County Public Schools have seen an increase in crimes compared to the mostly prepandemic school year of 2019-2020. During that year, there were 102 reportable crimes at a rate per 1,000 students of 3.98%.
According to the supplemental data for the NC 2022-23 Consolidated Data Report, which contains school-related crime statistics that include assault or fighting, New Hanover, as a district, had 167 reportable crimes for a rate of 6.735% per 1,000 students. That’s an increase from 121 reported during 2021-22 with an accompanying crime rate of 4.918%.
During 2022-23, high schools in the district overall saw 131 reportable crimes. Based on the student population of 8,419, that’s a crime rate of 15.16% per 1,000 students. The year prior, there were 88 reportable high school crimes with a similar student population and a crime rate of 10.63%.
For Laney High School specifically, there were 34 reportable acts of crime during 2022-23, which breaks down to a 15.61% rate per 1,000 students; the highest in the district for a high school that year.
During the 2021-22 school year, Laney saw 26 reportable crimes and a crime rate of around 12.6%. Going back to 2019-20, Laney had 26 reportable crimes and a crime rate of 12.71%.
