Violence on rise as schools in US reopen

US schools are dealing with a rise in violence and misbehavior nationwide, with students threatening teachers and gun violence increasing as children return to classrooms after studying remotely for nearly two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the children appear sad, aggressive and are acting out after being away from school for so long, say school resource officers and teachers who deal with them daily.

"I think it's very clear that this has been the case [that children have had problems adjusting back to school after the coronavirus pandemic],'' Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), told China Daily. "We seem to be seeing a lot more issues around mental health, challenges that we hadn't seen previously, and certainly a rise in a level of violence."

NASRO, a not-for-profit, has trained school-based law enforcement officers and school administrators to protect schools, students, faculty and staff since 1991. He estimates there are 25,000 to 30,000 SROs in schools nationwide.

Around 2 out of 3 schoolteachers, principals and district leaders said that they have seen students acting worse than at the same time in 2019, according to an EdWeek Research Center monthly survey. It was conducted from Dec 15-29 and surveyed 725 teachers, 199 principals and 286 district leaders.

It found that in districts where children had been taking part in remote learning in 2020 and 2021, 51 percent of teachers and district leaders said that they had seen more students threatening violence. But that figure fell to 30 percent in districts where students were instructed in person.

At least 44 percent of school officials reported receiving more threats of violence by students than in 2019.

One school in New York City, the nation's largest school district with 1.1 million students, saw a rise in violence that had parents worried about the impact on education.

At a middle school in Manhattan, a boy in the seventh grade lost teeth after being body-slammed in a cafeteria, and a student was beaten at a bus stop.

The boy's parent removed her son from the school this year and urged the principal to tackle the growing violence. The New York City Education Department has assigned school aides, social workers and paraprofessionals to the school.

The department said that schools would work alongside school safety agents to "provide safe environments". The department has at least one school safety agent at each public school. There are 4,400 altogether, according to Local 237, the union representing school safety.

McKinley High School, in Buffalo, New York, saw a shooting and a stabbing in its parking lot on Feb 9.

The victims were a 14-year-old student who was stabbed 10 times and is still in the hospital, and a security guard who was shot in the leg as he rushed to help. Two 17-year-olds have been arrested. Both were students at the school.

Local community group Buffalo Peacemakers Violence and Gang Intervention Program will be inside the school to support youth with mentoring and counseling to prevent more violence this week. They will be paid by the Buffalo school district.

Gun violence is also plaguing schools nationwide. The first half of the 2021-22 school year had the most gun violence in recent history, according to figures compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit against gun violence.

There were 136 incidents of gunfire on school premises between Aug 1 and Dec 31. At least 26 people were killed and 96 wounded, making it the highest number of gun incidents and people shot in the five-month period since 2013, according to the report.

Cortez Rice, from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, lost his son Jahmari Rice, 15, after he was shot dead at school on his lunch break on Feb 1. Two people have been charged with murder in the shooting.

The youth had big plans. He loved sports and played football and basketball and enjoyed wrestling. His dream was to play in the National Football League.

At his funeral on Feb 9, Rice fought back tears as he said: "Our babies should not have to go through this. We shouldn't have to go through this."

Said Canady: "Just comparing the same time frame in the fall of 2019 to the fall of 2021, gun-related incidents are up significantly in and around school campuses. So just that is an indicator of how much worse it is at the moment."

American schools have seen horrific incidents of mass shootings since the 1990s.

The families of nine victims of one of the worst school shootings in US history, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, reached a $73 million settlement on Tuesday of a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the company that made the rifle used in the 2012 shooting.