High School, Guns, and YouTube

Last week, I wrote about an incident at Pulaski High School, a public school in Milwaukee.

The initial report in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been shown to be incomplete and/or inaccurate.

An 18-year-old student at Pulaski High School was arrested after a gun was found in his locker Thursday, Milwaukee police said today.

The gun was not loaded, said police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.

She said the boy dropped the gun from his pocket during a class and a school safety officer alerted the police.

That account is pretty straight forward.

A boy had a gun at school and the matter was dealt with promptly and appropriately.

As it turns out, there's more to the story.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Police and Milwaukee Public Schools officials on Monday were investigating allegations that a teacher at Pulaski High School, 2500 W. Oklahoma Ave., saw a gun in the possession of a student in school and did not notify authorities in a timely manner.

An unloaded gun was found Thursday in the 18-year-old student's locker after a second teacher notified security aides at the school, sources familiar with the incident said.

Following a second incident on the same day the gun was found, MPS administrators said they were investigating a teacher who appeared to be out of her classroom while a fight occurred between two students, with many others watching. A student videotaped the fight, apparently on a cell phone, and the video was posted on the YouTube site on the Internet.

The two incidents led Pulaski's principal, Ada Rivera, to call an emergency staff meeting after school Friday.

Rivera said she called the meeting "to remind staff about all of their responsibilities and why it is that we have a no electronic devices and cell phone policy in the district." She said the school must maintain strong standards of safety and conduct, and those standards are "non-negotiable."

MPS spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin confirmed that officials were investigating whether a Pulaski teacher saw a gun fall out of a student's pocket last week but then did not tell authorities.

According to two sources who asked not to be named, including one connected to the school who feared job repercussions, the teacher told a colleague about the gun the next day, and the colleague told a school safety aide. Police were called, and the gun was found in the 18-year-old's locker.

St. Aubin said the investigation associated with the gun could lead to disciplinary proceedings that could include firing. The teacher at the center of that investigation was at work Monday.

First, how was a student able to videotape the fight on a cell phone?

Cell phones are banned in the public schools, but that's another matter. Let's put that aside.

This is a no-brainer. If a teacher did not report an ARMED student, that teacher should be fired.

What sort of teacher sees a student with a gun at school and doesn't take immediate action?

It's not a judgment call. What to do after spotting a kid with a gun is not a grey area.

I have sympathy for the teachers being expected to act like cops, rather than actually teach. It must be frustrating, not to mention frightening, for MPS teachers to face a roomful of thugs rather than reasonably well-behaved students.

Although it's a daunting, unenviable task, that's no excuse for failing to perform. It's what they get paid to do.

Teaching at MPS is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

In addition to the gun fallout, there's the disgrace of having a classroom fight scene at Pulaski High School posted on YouTube.

It's not a pretty picture of public education. Milwaukee residents should be troubled to see how their tax dollars are being spent.

Watch the video.

The videotaped fight did not leave either of the central parties injured, but the 52-second video clip posted on YouTube showed one swinging aggressively at the other and, at one point, slamming him into a radiator. One student made an attempt to break up the fight but others appeared to cheer it on.

...[St. Aubin] said the students involved were ninth-graders.

She said: "It's disturbing to watch. We're very unhappy that the incident happened. It almost becomes a secondary matter that it's posted on a well-viewed Web site. It just should never have happened."

Two students have been disciplined, she said, but she gave no details. Based on what can be seen in the video, "other student activities are under investigation," she said.

"The lack of student supervision is under investigation by the district administration," she added, and she expected MPS officials to involve police in that matter as well.

It's complete chaos.

I can't imagine any academic progress being made in such a setting.

I would think that Ada Rivera's job would be in jeopardy as well as the allegedly negligent teacher.

Students were shouting, screaming, cheering. They were making a lot of noise.

Not only was there no supervision in the classroom, but there was no swift response to the ruckus by other staff members or faculty. I can't believe that teachers in neighboring classrooms didn't notice that things were out of control.

Or are those the typical sounds coming from an MPS high school classroom, just another day at school?

St. Aubin claims the students were disciplined. Really? What was their punishment?

Writing "I will not fight in school" 100 times?

"I will leave my gun at home"?

Problems aren't limited to Milwaukee Public Schools. Shorewood High School is getting some bad press as well, thanks to another cell phone video made by a student photographer.

The video adds a dimension to the stories. It's one thing to hear that there was a fight. It's another thing to watch tape of it.

Shorewood -- Six students have been ticketed for their involvement in a lunchtime fight last week at Shorewood High School, and as many as 20 others who watched may also be ticketed, police said Monday.

The incident began as a dispute over money between two boys, one 15 and the other 17, Lt. Terry Zimmerman said. Zimmerman said that while one of the youths was black and the other was white, the incident did not appear racially motivated.

"If it had been racial, everyone would have jumped in," Zimmerman said. "That was not the case."

The police investigation was aided by a video recording one of the students made. Police released a copy of the video later Monday.

The video begins in the school cafeteria. The photographer introduces the two youths who were about to fight, and a group of about 20 students moves outdoors in a party-like mood to a grassy area on the school campus.

Once outdoors, the cameraman turns his camera on himself and explains that one boy had borrowed money from the other and had refused to pay it back, and now they were going to fight. The video shows a large crowd taunting the boys to "fight, fight," and several punches are thrown as the boys roll around on the street. Four people join in and start kicking, but it's unclear who they are aiming at.

..."We will be taking action soon," [Shorewood School Superintendent Blane McCann] said. "There will be consequences."

Really?

Will those consequences be severe enough to deter others at Shorewood from fighting?

I doubt it.