Parents hope other parents will get involved after recent violence

STORY: Bus driver takes high school student with gunshot wound to fire station

Some local parents said they want change to happen after recent violence in schools and on school buses.

It’s an ugly sight; students fighting students. And parents said it’s happening far too often.

“It’s straight chaos,” said Timothy Sloan, a concerned parent.

“They’re so fearful, thinking that something is going to happen,” said a grandparent.

Just last week, parents at Baldwin Middle Senior High School sent Action News Jax video of a student pounding another student to the ground.

The video shows a group of girls repeatedly punching another girl.

On the Westside, police swarmed around a school bus after two children got into a fight.

And at Palm Avenue Exceptional Center, a student attached a school employee with a pen.

STORY: Local parents concerned over violence in schools

“We have teachers that are afraid to come to school,” said Sloan.

These are all incidents from just last week.

“There has been an increase in violence, an increase in fights,” said Tiffany Clark, parent leader with Parents Who Lead, and Parent Academy with Duval County Schools.

Clark said she hopes these painful images will prompt parents to get involved.

“I would describe it as an opportunity for parents to really now step up and not just become leaders at home, but in the community,” she said.

According to a 2017 survey by DCPS – about 4 percent of high school students said they carried a weapon on school property.

More than one in 10 high school students were in a physical fight. It’s worse in middle school. About three in 10 students said they had been in a physical fight.

And about one in three students carried a gun.

“It’s happening every day, and until the community, until the parents start speaking out about it more, we’re going to keep on having a problem,” said Sloan.

School fight video raises safety concerns Baldwin Middle-Senior High School

Cox Media Group