A violent fight broke out in the boy’s bathroom on Oct. 5, as bystanders provoked the combatants and recorded instead of intervening, sparking concerns about how Cal High students and administrators are addressing violence on campus.
The incident in which a sophomore boy was shown repeatedly punching a junior boy pinned against a wall, spread on social media through two videos that were filmed by bystanders.
One of the main concerns administrators had was the students in the videos seen filming and enticing the violence when they could be helping instead.
“It is unacceptable,” Cal Principal Demetrius Ball said. “You need to be responsible enough to say this isn’t right. If you take your phone out you are basically egging on the fight.”
The two students who were filming and encouraging the fight were punished along with the boy beating up the other student, Ball said.
“Since phones have been around, people would rather record,” junior Kaleb Yohannes said. “People don’t care about stepping in. It’s more about saying ‘look what I got’, or ‘did you see the fight’?”
Yohannes has seen many people record fights over the years instead of helping out. He thinks people who record fights are more concerned with getting attention from posting the recordings than stopping the situation.
“The videos spread fast,” sophomore Vihaan Yadav said.
Videos are recorded and circulated to students quickly through social media, which allows for the news to spread in minutes.
“Filming fights can be beneficial when it comes to dealing with punishments,” Cal parent Dennis Lee said. “But filming just to spread for likes and clicks is not beneficial.”
Although Lee thinks filming fights might help identify students or show what happened and how it escalated, he still says there is a clear line between helping and wanting attention from posting the video.
Ball stresses that actively helping does not mean students have to interfere physically with the two people fighting, as such as decision often will only make the situation worse. Instead, he advises students to go to the closest classroom for a teacher or find staff and let them handle it.
“I don’t want to put anybody in harm’s way to where you physically get involved if it’s not going to be safe,” Ball said. “Go to the closest classroom.”
The bathroom fight and bystander mentality was addressed at an Oct. 9 PTSA meeting. Many parents said they were concerned and angry about the incident because of the levels of violence their kids were facing at school. Others were worried that administrators were not dealing out harsh enough punishments.
A parent who attended the PTSA said the recording of the fight didn’t seem like a fight but a one-sided assault.
“Those involved got the consequences and support that they need,” Ball said. “But we have a range of disciplinary actions that we can take.”
Parents at the meeting wanted students to know that there are serious consequences that will be faced.
“I think there should be better consequential actions as there are more and more fights everyday,” freshman Kashyap Deverkonda said. “This causes an unhealthy environment.”
Administrators indicated they can suspend students for a maximum of five days for fighting. Other options such as detention or expulsion are viable depending on the situation.
Deverkonda believes immediate and serious consequences would discourage students from fighting, creating a better school environment.
“Five days seems like a lot, but for repeated fights I think there should be leeway to extend it,” Lee said.
Lee said he hasn’t heard of many fighting incidents at Cal and is not concerned for students’ safety. But Yohannes said that fights are very common.
“As a junior, fights like this always happen,” Yohannes said. “I’ve seen about one or two fights a year.”
Added Yadav, “I think fights are a bad look for Cal High and the school’s environment.”
To stop violence, administrators are addressing school safety issues during tutorial classes by highlighting the district’s Safe Schools project, which includes releasing videos about how to keep the school safe and encourage a flourishing environment. Oct. 16 marked the first week of the Safe Schools project.
Ball said promoting kindness and asking students to try to better understand one another is a great way for them to learn instead of creating conflict.
“I believe there are unsafe locations at the school, however it is not always this way,” Deverkonda said. “There are safe places at other areas on campus.”
Even as a freshman, Deverkonda sees certain places as unsafe, and tends to avoid these areas of campus.
The Safe Schools program attempts to prevent these bad environments from being created and make the entire camps feel safer. Yohannes condemns the violence and said that school should be a safe place.
“I don’t ever promote violence,” Yohannes said. “It should be peace and love at this school. There’s no place for a negative environment.”