Pittsburgh Public Schools officials Wednesday said safety was a priority for the district but could provide little detail about how they plan to address the uptick in unruly behavior and recent violent incidents reported throughout the city schools this year.
Numerous district employees and students have been injured in fights in the 2021-22 academic year, including a 17-year-old junior at Brashear High School who was hospitalized Friday after being slammed on his head and stomped on by another student.
The boy’s family said it was the fourth time this school year that the 17-year-old had been attacked by the same student, and school officials failed to take actions to stop the violence even though they knew of the ongoing issues.
District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said interim Superintendent Wayne Walters was unavailable for an interview Wednesday. In a statement, Ms. Pugh said “the safety of our students and staff is a top priority. Last Friday’s incident is currently under district review. As there is video that shows the images of students, no further information can be provided.”
School board President Sala Udin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
School administrators and staff members have asked for more supports in buildings, such as increased security, counselors and mental health services.
They have also requested that the board reinstate a policy it ended in June that allowed for exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, to be levied on students who repeatedly commit low-level infractions. They said that continuing to tolerate disruptive behavior and other minor offenses without any repercussions has fostered an environment that has led to larger issues in schools.
But the teachers union said those calls have gone unanswered.
Nina Esposito-Visgitis, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said board members have acknowledged that schools need help dealing with the increase in unrest, but they have not offered any tangible solutions.
“They are not providing the support they promised,” she said. “The school board keeps talking. We need boots on the ground, and we need action. They need to listen to people in the schools.”
Ms. Esposito-Visgitis said board members should visit school buildings and talk to teachers to see what they deal with on a daily basis.
“I don’t think our school board is being responsive enough to our teachers and school administrators,” she said. “[Some board members] have never been in the classroom, yet they think they know better than the people who are in there.”
School staff are “disgusted” and “angry” about the unrest throughout the district, Ms. Esposito-Visgitis said. And staff members, who she said are already burnt out because of the rigors caused by pandemic, are leaving the district at a higher rate than usual.
School board member Gene Walker said the board is committed to working with district administration to improve safety in schools, but he could not point to any specific plans or policies that school officials had been discussing.
While it is easy to highlight one or two incidents of violence and call for wholesale change, Mr. Walker said, the district must take a holistic approach and not make changes in a reactive way.
“Right now, things are kind of crazy, and we get that,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re going to fix it overnight.”
Mr. Walker said the fear, uncertainty and isolation of the pandemic has increased the social and emotional needs of students, and the district must find a way to support its students.
Ms. Esposito-Visgitis noted that school districts nationwide have experienced similar problems this year because of fallout from the pandemic and the larger polarization of society. Children have witnessed bitter political divisiveness, arguments and violence in person and on social media platforms, she said, and more of them have gotten involved in destructive activities outside of school because of the shutdowns over the past few years.
She said those issues that started outside school buildings are now surfacing as those facilities reopen, which has led to the uptick in unrest and violence across the district, such as the situation that landed the 17-year-old in the hospital last week.
In that incident, school police charged Quincey Garland, an 18-year-old senior, with aggravated assault.
A police affidavit says that Mr. Garland was fighting with the 17-year-old boy and another student in a second-floor hallway when a teacher intervened and pulled the third student away.
The two students continued fighting until Mr. Garland picked up the 17-year-old student, slammed him head first on the floor and kicked him in the head five times, according to the affidavit.
“The video appears to show [the 17-year-old] possibly getting knocked out by the first slam to the floor,” the affidavit said. “Then the five kicks happened after he appeared to be unconscious.”
School police Officer Steven Fillip, who wrote the affidavit, said he and a security guard removed the third student involved in the fight from the area and did not initially notice the 17-year-old unconscious on the floor because of the number of students standing around.
When he returned to the scene, he said he saw a school nurse attending to the unconscious 17-year-old boy and called paramedics.
“A few minutes later [the 17-year-old] regained consciousness,” the affidavit said. “I noticed large bruising and bleeding around his face.”
The affidavit said the boy was taken to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC in stable condition.
The 17-year-old’s family said it was the fourth time the boy had been attacked by the same student this school year and blamed school administrators for not acting to protect him. The school’s principal, Kimberly Safran, has been placed on non-disciplinary paid leave as the district reviews the situation.
The three other incidents occurred Sept. 8, Sept. 14 and Dec. 15, according to the boy’s family. A 49-second cell phone video of the Dec. 15 altercation shows the boy being punched, kicked, and thrown into a urinal and stall doors in a school bathroom.
After the December incident, the 17-year-old’s mother filed a harassment charge against Mr. Garland at the office of Magisterial District Judge James Motznik. A court date was set for Feb. 2.
The district has not commented on any of the allegations from the 17-year-old boy’s family.
School board member Pam Harbin deferred comment on the situation at Brashear to district administration. But she said “I am very concerned about the safety of students and staff in our schools. I will continue working with administration, school board, and PPS community on proactive solutions to prevent violence. Underfunded, understaffed and under-resourced public schools cannot be the norm.”
Board members Sylvia Wilson and Bill Gallagher also deferred comment to district administration. Devon Taliaferro, Tracey Reed, Jamie Piotrowski and Kevin Carter did not respond to requests for comment.
The incident at Brashear was one of three high-profile acts of violence across the district last week.
Marquis Campbell, 15, a student at Oliver Citywide Academy, was fatally shot last Wednesday while waiting in a school van outside the building during dismissal.
And two district employees were injured last Thursday while trying to break up a scuffle among five students at Carrick High School. The students involved in that fight also face punitive action from the school and could be charged.
On Monday, a school security guard found a gun near Westinghouse High School. Less than two weeks earlier, police took a student into custody after a gun was found inside of Carrick High School, prompting a lock down.
In November, fights in consecutive weeks at Brashear led to two school police officers being injured.
In the three school years prior to the pandemic, Brashear reported an average of 35 fights and 15 assaults annually, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Brashear saw a lower rate of these incidents than Perry and Carrick high schools but more than Allderdice High School, according to a Post-Gazette analysis.
Data from this school year was not immediately available.
Andrew Goldstein: agoldstein@post-gazette.com. Staff writer Joel Jacobs contributed.
First Published: January 27, 2022, 1:59 a.m.
