Student violence is a rising menace in the United States. The Center for Disease Control estimates that up to 2% of all homicides among school-going children occur on school grounds on the way to and from a school-sponsored event (CDC, 2017). Statistics from 2015 show that up to 7.8% were in a fight on school grounds more than one time over the last year, a drop from 8.1% the previous year. Up to 5.6% of students did not attend school on at least 1 day in the previous month because they felt unsafe (CDC, 2016). The rising number of fights at Cory Hill is therefore a worrying trend as it directly affects student safety and the education standard at Cory Hill. The increasing fights problem can be seen as the result of minimal teacher supervision and adverse student interactions. This paper seeks to identify possible solutions and seek their implementation.
Increasing fights are noted during inter-grade changes at the cafeteria every half hour. This is because the students use the same pathway for their exit and entry into the cafeteria. The lack of space at this point could be the cause for fights as hungry students push in while satisfied students calmly move out, thereby creating an aggressive response to perceived aggression such as pushing and shoving. Moreover, this interaction could be used as opportunity to settle scores. The fact that there is also minimal supervision means that several fights can happen concurrently, but there is minimal staff available to cover the ground.
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As a result, possible solutions could be having more members of staff on ground during lunch hours, limiting staff traditions to twice a week on faculty-arranged times. Additionally, active counseling and student forums for students engaged in fights should be undertaken to understand student perspectives on violence. Again, structural changes to cafeteria could be made, allowing students to use a different exit, while incoming students use the current entrance.
Regarding student intervention methods, research shows that different perspectives are present among students on the issue of student violence (Fatum & Hoyle, 1996). While statistics may review it as a liking towards violence, different student issues may be present, thereby leading to the fights. As a result, student intervention methods such as counseling and student forums should be created to understand the root cause of the problem, while applying provisional measures to reduce instances of violence (Grossman, et al., 1997). Such provisional measures include increasing the number of staff members at the cafeteria (McCurdy, Lannie, & Barnabas, 2009). While embracing the culture of sacred lunch times is beneficial to staff, having the cafeteria deteriorate into anarchy defeats the purpose of providing good organizational culture. This is because the students, as stakeholders at the school, require adequate care. In line with this, the structural integrity of the cafeteria should be re-evaluated having noted one of the core reasons for violence is student interactions at the entrance, which is also the exit.
Due to the planning required for structural re-evaluation of the cafeteria, implementation begins with counseling sessions, student forums and an increase in the number of staff on-site. Moreover, an interactive program such as student-teacher lunches can be implemented to remove the attitude of teachers being wardens at a prison (Behre, Astor, & Meyer, 2001). The environment at the teacher’s lounge can be replicated at the cafeteria, having music playing and some decoration. Teachers can then organize students as they exit and enter the cafeteria. Again, student by-standers can be educated on what they can do to reduce the escalation of fights (Wilson-Simmons, Dash, Tehranifar, O'donnell, & Stueve, 2006). Finally, the school could undertake a project to create an exit for the cafeteria.
Measures to gauge the success of the project would be taken in regular intervals to determine the success of the project through a statistics of the current fight numbers versus post-implementation figures. Again, improving student attitudes towards the lunch break could be a good indicator of project effectiveness at the school.
References
Behre, W. J., Astor, R. A., & Meyer, H. A. (2001). Elementary-and middle-school teachers' reasoning about intervening in school violence: An examination of violence-prone school subcontexts. Journal of Moral Education, 30(2) , 131-153.
CDC. (2016). Trends in the Prevalence of Behaviors that Contribute to Violence on School Property; National YRBS: 1991—2015. Retrieved from Center for Disease Control: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/trends/2015_us_violenceschool_trend_yrbs.pdf
CDC. (2017). School Violence: Data & Statistics . Retrieved from Center for Disease Control : https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/data_stats.html
Fatum, W. R., & Hoyle, J. C. (1996). Is it violence? School violence from the student perspective: Trends and interventions. The School Counselor, 44(1) , 28-34.
Grossman, D. C., Neckerman, H. J., Koepsell, T. D., Liu, P. Y., Asher, K. N., Beland, K., & Rivara, F. P. (1997). Effectiveness of a violence prevention curriculum among children in elementary school: A randomized controlled trial. Jama, 277(20) , 1605-1611.
McCurdy, B. L., Lannie, A. L., & Barnabas, E. (2009). Reducing disruptive behavior in an urban school cafeteria: An extension of the Good Behavior Game. Journal of School Psychology, 47(1) , 39-54.
Wilson-Simmons, R., Dash, K., Tehranifar, P., O'donnell, L., & Stueve, A. (2006). What can student bystanders do to prevent school violence? Perceptions of students and school staff. Journal of school violence, 5(1) , 43-62.
