Laurel Highlands School District cracks down on school fights

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (KDKA) -- A school district in Fayette County is implementing new procedures in hopes of eliminating what they're calling a large uptick in fights among students.

The Laurel Highlands superintendent says there have been dozens of fights within the school halls this year between students, outweighing what they've seen in years past.

In a letter sent home to parents this week, Superintendent Dr. Jesse Wallace addressed a high increase in student-on-student aggression, specifically between freshman students.

"We know that those students that are in the ninth grade right now were the fifth graders during the COVID outbreak, and they were out of school for a large amount of time. And then upon returning to school, they were masked. We don't know if that has anything to do with the social-emotional side of things or whether or not being able to read behaviors of others or communicating with others are a contributing factor."

He says they've seen between 30 and 40 fights just this school year happening in all grade levels, and mostly between females. They're now implementing new procedures in hopes of deterring it from happening at all.

"The procedures that we're putting in place focus on once there is a student-on-student type aggression episode, and they're going to be suspended from school, they're going to be out of school suspension, we're not going to let those things continue," he said. 

The student will also be cited through the magistrate and have to meet with its guidance department before being able to return to school. In addition, they're implementing one-way directional hallways for when students are changing classes.

"We're making sure that we have adult supervision in the building, a larger presence of adult supervision in the buildings in order to make sure that students are aware that they need to be where they need to be when they need to be there," Wallace said. 

 And any student involved in recording a fight will also be suspended and lose cell phone privileges.

"At the end of it all, we're trying to keep all of our students safe. We're trying to keep our staff safe," he said.

The superintendent says the new procedures are effective immediately.