Off-Campus Fights Increase

This year, Newsome High School students have been recently holding off campus fights. The cause of these fights can give a bad reputation, which leaves the question: Why are students planning them?

According to Child Trends Data Bank, about one in four high school students will get involved in a physical fight within a year. From 1991, the percentage of fights inside school has gone down by almost half. Here at Newsome, it is indeed a rarity for a fight to break out during school, and those that do often end quickly as soon as faculty get involved.

Perhaps the reason for such rare fights on campus is due to the threat of In or Out of school suspension for any involved in the fight (even students who may have tried to stop the fight), especially among the Seniors who wish to exempt their final exams. This is also what likely led to off-campus fights.

The students involved probably thought that they wouldn’t get into trouble (at least with the school) if they brought any feuds away from campus. It turns out this assumption is, for lack of a better term, incorrect.

According to Deputy Alonso, the school can still investigate off- campus fights. When asked if students can be punished for fighting off- campus he answered, “Yes, a lot of people don’t realize it but if it’s a fight off campus and it disrupts the school, they can get ISS or OSS.”

To the question of which class they thought were most likely to participate in fights, Freshman Eli Bartley said, “I would have to say the freshman class.” Statistically, Bartley is correct. Child Trends state that “prevalence of physical fights decreases with age.” Ninth graders are indeed more likely to be involved in a school fight, on or off campus.

Some may think that since fights at Newsome are so rare that it’s not so big a deal if one happens every once in a while. But Deputy Alonso says that it is because they are so rare that it’s such a big deal. The likely penalty for fights is up to 10 days suspension or even expulsion.

Freshman Aliyah Flowers, when asked if she thought students should be allowed to punish students who fight off- campus, said, “I don’t think the school should be able to ban anyone who participates in them because it’s what they do on their own time.”

Fortunately, Newsome is far from the worst school when it comes to fighting. However, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t stop. A reputation for fighting is not something students should be vying for.