A Closer Look at Campus Fights

Tristan Keller is afraid to go to school.

The seventh-grader at John Burroughs Middle School in Hancock Park was so severely beaten by a classmate that he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, according to his doctor. He says he has nightmares about getting killed should he return.

His mother is also afraid--and angry.

Janet Keller, along with several students, says two teachers at John Burroughs witnessed her son being beaten and took no steps to stop it. School officials, who refuse to discuss the incident in detail, say the allegations are overstated.

At a time when school violence conjures up images of gun-toting children run amok, Tristan’s case raises difficult questions about a far more common school problem: How vigilant should teachers and school administrators be in preventing or intervening in campus fights?

Los Angeles Unified School District officials say it is unrealistic to try to draft universal policies for handling such volatile cases. However, experts in school safety say it is clear that teachers and other school personnel need to be better trained in how to react.

Although most types of crime have declined in the district, statistics show that L.A. Unified had an 8% increase in battery cases last year--and a total of 1,157 in the past two years.

Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the nonprofit National School Safety Center, believes that the increasingly violent nature of highly publicized school crimes, from multiple-victim shootings to gang activity, has desensitized teachers and administrators to more mundane forms of school violence and made them less likely to report it to police.

“Unfortunately, school crime reporting is a lot like the position the media often takes: If it bleeds it leads,” Stephens said. “School officials seldom report if no blood is drawn.”

According to witnesses, a female substitute teacher was overseeing Tristan Keller’s English class Feb. 27 when he was beaten.

The substitute told the class to review material and settled in at her desk, students said. Toward the end of class, Tristan was involved in an altercation with another boy. The teacher admonished both and told them to sit at opposite ends of the back of the room, students said.

According to one student, whose mother asked that the girl not be identified for fear of reprisal, the other boy boasted: “I’m going to beat Tristan’s ass” after class.

Fearing for his safety, Tristan said he pleaded with the teacher for an escort to his next class.

“I told her if I went outside that I would be beat up,” Tristan said. He said the teacher told him to go talk to a dean who serves as the school’s discipline officer.

The substitute teacher declined to be interviewed but said in a written statement that she did not recall “any student remaining asking for protection or being fearful.”

As Tristan left the classroom, he was grabbed by the other boy, described as a stocky 13-year-old. Tristan and witnesses said he struggled to escape, but was pushed back into the fight by a crowd that had gathered to watch.

The attacker thrust Tristan’s head against the lockers several times, put Tristan’s hand inside a locker and shut the door so violently that he fractured the hand.

Tristan lost consciousness momentarily. A doctor’s examination revealed that he had suffered a concussion.

Students said the teacher came out to see what was happening but did not take any action.

Ava Noice, a student who was in the classroom next to Tristan’s, said that she went to her teacher for help but that the teacher also ignored the violence and returned to the classroom. Noice’s teacher also declined to be interviewed, saying in a written statement that she did use a classroom phone to call the main office requesting security assistance.

According to witnesses, it took the school librarian, a petite older woman, to rush Tristan to the library and save him from further harm.

John Burroughs Principal Fonna Bishop said school district policies and procedures were followed in Tristan’s case. She added that at least one phone call was made to the main office during the incident, but declined to say who made it.

“There was intervention, medical assistance was provided and there was an investigation,” Bishop said, adding: “We don’t tolerate fights at our school, and there are consequences for staff, students and parents.”

Such consequences will not be disclosed, however, because the school district considers teacher discipline a personnel matter, and because the alleged attacker is shielded by privacy laws protecting minors. Witnesses said the alleged attacker resumed attending classes after a brief absence, but was later transferred. The Los Angeles school district’s safety plan has general guidelines for the staff on how to handle campus fights. But how those guidelines are applied is up to the discretion of each school.

Flexibility is necessary because no single set of rules can cover every situation in a 680,000-student district, said Wayne Iwahashi, the district’s administrator of student discipline proceedings.

“Ultimately, the principal is responsible for all that goes on at the school,” he said. But “there is a wide gray area.”

It is that area that worries some school safety experts, especially when school fights are so common.

The National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education, estimated that there were 187,890 physical attacks or fights in public schools nationwide in the 1996-97 school year, making it by far the most common form of school violence.

National School Safety Center director Stephens said school districts should have a clear policy on the types of physical restraint that adult supervisors can use in the schools, and train them to spot early signs of trouble, such as name-calling or “stare-downs” between students.

“The single most effective strategy is the physical presence of a responsible adult in the immediate vicinity,” he said. “Generally, it is small things that, when left unattended, escalate to major circumstances.”

Most school violence prevention programs focus primarily on the students. Anger management and conflict resolution programs help students deal with themselves and their peers, but teachers receive little, if any, training on how to handle student fights, said Beverly Cook, secondary school vice president of United Teachers-Los Angeles.

“Teachers are not equipped to deal with violence. You just go with your instinct,” she said.

Moreover, teachers may be reluctant to intervene in fights because they fear being hurt or are afraid they will be cited for child abuse if they use excessive force, Cook said.

In Tristan’s case, campus police only learned of the occurrence when his mother came to press charges against the alleged attacker five days after the incident.

“The police didn’t even know of the violence that had occurred,” Tristan’s mother said.

The alleged attacker was arrested and released. Charges against him are pending in Juvenile Court.

District spokeswoman Socorro Sorrano said the delay in reporting the case to police was not unusual.

“The primary responsibility of getting the police involved is of the parents and the victims,” Sorrano said, “because they are the ones who have the cause of action.” She said school officials must first investigate the case to decide whether a crime was committed before pressing charges against a student.

Responded Tristan’s mother, who said she is now locked in a frustrating battle with the district to provide alternatives for her son: “The employees of the school have to take more responsibility.”