LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Fewer Jefferson County Public Schools students were referred for fighting-related incidents during the 2021-22 school year compared to past terms.
Records obtained by WDRB News show district staff doled out 20,841 referrals to students for fighting, which includes student-to-student fighting and striking and student-to-staff striking incidents, during the 2021-22 school year.
That’s down from comparable school years. JCPS reported 25,115 referrals during the 2019-20 school year — when the district joined others across Kentucky and the U.S. in suspending in-person learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 — and 28,774 referrals during the 2018-19 school year. Those figures represent drops of 17% and 27.6%, respectively, compared to the past school year.
While the district has seen fewer students disciplined for fights, incidents inside schools still worries people like Betty. Her grandson has been bullied at Doss High and Valley High, she said.
"There was altercations because people found out about his handicap, teasing and bullying began," said Betty, who only wanted to share her first name out of fear of retaliation against her grandson. "... He did speak with the school officials. Threats were made toward him, and we moved him to a different school to Valley."
While the number of behavior referrals for fighting dropped in the 2021-22 school year, referrals for violent incidents jumped from comparable school years, records show. The district includes incidents like assault, arson, robbery, sexual assault and terroristic threatening in what constitutes violent behavior, records show.
The district reported 1,521 referrals for violent behavior by students during the 2021-22 school year, up from 829 in 2019-20 and 1,177 in 2018-19, according to records obtained by WDRB News.
JCPS also saw the number of overall fight-related incidents drop this year compared to comparable years, but the district changed how it reported the number of fights that occurred inside its schools for the 2021-22 school year.
Carolyn Callahan, chief of communications and community relations for JCPS, said during a previous interview in May that the district previously counted the number of fighting incidents by the number of students involved, not by individual incidents. That changed during the 2021-22 school year, she said.
"If five students had gotten in a fight, that would have counted as five incidences on these reports," she said at the time. "Now that's just one incident."
Betty said she’s working to get her grandson enrolled in a private school for the upcoming school year. She’s worried that he will be attacked again if he returns to Valley, saying he was attacked from behind last year.
"There’s no consequences to what kids do," Betty said. "They get a vacation for two or three days suspension, and they come back and do it all over again."
JCPS records show students were given behavior referrals for fighting incidents 184 times at Doss and 195 times at Valley during the 2021-22 school year.
Those two schools were not among those that had the highest numbers of student referrals for fighting-related incidents, however.
JCPS records show Binet School, a school for students with moderate to severe disabilities, issued the most behavior referrals for fighting-related incidents with 809 followed by Marion C. Moore School with 569 and Thomas Jefferson Middle with 565. Most of the behavior referrals at Binet involve students striking others, according to the district.
Other JCPS schools with high numbers of fighting referrals include:
- Coleridge-Taylor Montessori Elementary: 494
- Cane Run Elementary: 475
- Stuart Academy: 458
- McFerran Preparatory Academy: 436
- Kammerer Middle: 407
- Carrithers Middle: 389
- Noe Middle: 389
- Conway Middle: 378
- Goldsmith Elementary: 367
- Johnson Traditional Middle: 354
"I don't think any parent wants your kids to fight anywhere, whether it's school or out in the community, and it shows us that we are we have work to do," Callahan said in May. "We all do as an entire community, so we are working on the school level to talk with kids and notice those trauma-related triggers that many kids are facing."
Records provided by JCPS show most fighting-related incidents are resolved by out-of-school suspensions (7,020), phone calls home (2,705), student conferences (2,648), and conferences with parents and guardians (1,986).
JCPS also hopes families will connect with schools if they notice their children behaving differently at home or if something has happened at home that may affect their behavior, Callahan said.
"We're really making that effort to meet the kids where they are and find out how we can help them prevent this before it happens," she said, adding that families can contact schools if they question whether their children’s schools are safe.
Betty says JCPS can do more to make their schools safe, such as installing cameras and hiring more staff to monitor students.
"I don't understand why the school doesn't press charges," Betty said. "You have it on film of kids getting attacked on your watch, but they tell the parents, ‘You can take them to court.’"
A chart of how many fighting and violent incidents happened at JCPS schools in the 2021-22 school year is available here:
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