Brawls in school hallways and parking lots.
Blood splattered on lockers.
Assaults and threats against teachers.
Parents fighting students; parents fighting each other.
Pepper spray, police, arrests.
Several of those brawls at Madison, Wisconsin’s East High School were broken up by dozens of police officers. Some fights went viral on social media videos, some left students hospitalized.
“It’s a total mess,” said Kerry Zalenski, whose daughter was attending East, remembering the goings-on as the 2021-22 school year wound down.
The fights and other misbehavior recounted in Youth Today interviews with school staff, parents and students and in published news accounts, came during the first full school year, following the COVID-19 pandemic, after Madison Metropolitan School District removed the armed Madison Police Department officers who previously had been assigned to each of the district’s four high schools.
Madison is one of about 49 public school distr
Recently, millions of people across our communities have come together in an historic movement that calls for fundamental change addressing systemic racism. We asked lawyers to tell us what this moment in American racial, social, and legal justice refor
Recently, millions of people across our communities have come together in an historic movement that calls for fundamental change addressing systemic racism. We asked lawyers to tell us what this moment in American racial, social, and legal justice refor