According to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2017 about 8.5% of students 9th-12th grade will get into fights on campus. Most of these fights end up being recorded by other students and sometimes even posted on social media. Many students are affected by having fights, but what is the faculty doing to prevent fights and the recording of them? To find out how true these statistics are, we interviewed Assistant Director Jason Clow and the School Resource Officer, Officer Schulte. 

     The first thing we set out to find was how often fights occur at Pearce Hall and what they are doing to prevent fights. Surprisingly Assistant Director Jason Clow said,” In the last two years that I have been here there have only been two fights, and one wasn’t really a fight.” Considering how often we hear about fights at school this was good to hear. 

  Clow also stated the reason he believes most fights occur. "...people sending text messages, people sending snap chats things like that saying stuff to other people on the internet that they would not say to someones face" "Sometimes students come in and they have a lot of stuff they are carrying with them from outside of school, and someone mighty say something to them, that they don't intend to cause any problems but if you had a really bad day or a tough morning and you come in with something and that might set you off" 

     Officer Schulte who is the supervisor of SRO and also happens to be the Sergeant of Wentzville police department, has been for the last 25 years. Also chimed in on how to prevent fightsm, "I think it's important for officers when there in schools to have more of a mentoring relationship with students as opposed to an authoritative relationship so that students can feel more comfortable coming and talking and speaking up and saying stuff or just getting advice" and "....I think it's important but I think that you have to have the right kind of officer in schools, who wants to be there." We think this is a great idea as well because it gives the students someone else they can talk to when they are going through things. Instead of taking it out on other students, they can talk it through with an adult that they trust. 

     We also asked Officer Schulte, what are the legal issues behind recording fights at school? He replied, “...your phone could be confiscated or seized, as evidence, so if you decide to videotape a fight you've only been in two fights.” Risking your phone being not taken as punishment, but because it has evidence on it…” We found this interesting because most people don't assume that videotaping a fight can end up with your phone being taken away because you have evidence that they may need.

     In conclusion, we found out that the faculty has resources set to try to prevent fights at school. They have adults and officers there to help all the students to ensure the safety of everyone and to also be there to help or just be a listening ear. We also learned that it is not a good idea to record fights. This can lead to your phone being taken away and used for evidence. We found all this information interesting and learned a lot from these two. We hope that if anyone is in any of these circumstances they will read this and find it helpful as well.