There were 11 incidents of fighting among Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé students during the first quarter of the school year, compared to three among high school students during each of the past two years when they were divided into two schools, according to a report presented by Juneau School District Superintendent Frank Hauser during a school board meeting Tuesday night.
The report also states there were eight fights during the first quarter of this year among seventh- and eighth-grade students at the newly consolidated Thunder Mountain Middle School. That compares to nine fights in last year and 13 fights two years ago when there were two middle schools housing students in grades 6-8.
This year’s consolidation of students may be causing some heightened tensions resulting in the greater number of fights, said Elijah Keaton, a senior who is a JDHS student representative for the school board, during a break in Tuesday’s Juneau Board of Education meeting.
“It’s people are trying to get used to this and there was bound to be conflict,” he said. “I’m sure it will go down over the years.”
A chart showing fights at Juneau’s middle and high schools during the first quarter of this school year, and how the total compares to incidents during the past two school years, is part of a report presented by Juneau School District Superintendent Frank Hauser to the Juneau Board of Education on Tuesday night. (Juneau School District chart)
Hauser, during a presentation of his report, said the number of high school incidents dropped from six in September to two in October. He also said of the 19 students involved in the high school fights, 15 were freshmen or sophomores — numbers he called “consistent with middle school data from the last two years.”
The Juneau Police Department and/or Juvenile Justice Division responded to five of the 11 fights at JDHS, Hauser said. Six of the fights were on school grounds, five were off-campus.
Concerns about the increase in fights were expressed by students, parents and a teacher during a school board meeting in October, including reports of students from other schools coming to watch and film fights. Hauser, in his report presented Tuesday, noted there were 10 fights during the entire 2023-24 school year among students at Juneau’s two high schools and 12 during the 2022-23 school year.
The report also notes there were 44 fights among students at the two middle schools during the 2022-23 school year and 38 during the 2023-24 school year. While Thunder Mountain Middle School would have 32 fights this school year if the pace during the first quarter was consistent throughout, it also wouldn’t include sixth-grade students among their ranks.
A concern of school board members at Tuesday’s meeting, as well as previously, is discipline measures — for both students who initiate fights and those who are punished for defending themselves.
“If we’re gong to teach our kids about justice I think we need to practice justice in our schools,” said Emil Mackey, a board member arguing district policy should allow students to fight back to defend themselves.
Hauser, in response, stated district administrators “do look at each individual situation as an individual situation in making a determination at that point, based off of the information they collect through student statements, whether there’s video and information that comes through.”
Efforts are also being made to determine what is prompting fights to occur, including whether transitioning between school and lingering social effects from campuses being shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic might be factors, Hauser said.
“Whether we can pinpoint that’s the reason behind it 100% I don’t know if we’ll ever truly know, but those are some of the conversations we’re having,” he said.
Other possible preventative measures such as security cameras inside JDHS, where there currently are none, have been discussed by district officials.
Keaton, who during a board meeting earlier this year observed “I have seen more violence during my few months here at JD than I did the three years of my (being at) TM,” said Tuesday he believes district officials are “really trying to help stop this.”
“There is room for improvement,” he added. “The cameras would be a good improvement so the only correlation of who actually started what isn’t just people recording.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
