Raucous Meeting Focuses On Fights At Southampton High School

Concerns about fighting on Southampton High School grounds and a rampant rumor about a threat of violence targeting the school culminated in a raucous community meeting Monday evening involving Southampton School District administrators and more than 200 parents, students and district employees.

Emotions were high, and the tone reached a fever pitch early on. Just 15 minutes into the special meeting, held in the high school cafeteria, Southampton High School Principal Timothy Mundell, Ed.D., was being peppered with questions from angry parents when he collapsed into a chair; a plastic water bottle he was holding pitched forward, spilling onto a table and the floor. Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance personnel arrived on the scene, and he was helped out of the meeting and later treated at Southampton Hospital and released the same evening.

On Tuesday, he blamed the fainting spell on having gone all day and into the evening without eating or drinking.

In the moments after the principal’s collapse, some parents accused others of attacking him. “This is what we teach our children?” one cried.

The issues that prompted the meeting—two seniors were accused by police of assaulting a freshman on school grounds last week, the latest of several physical altercations on school grounds, and a former student allegedly issued a threat that he would commit violence on school grounds on Tuesday—can largely be blamed on the ubiquity and anonymity of technology, namely text messaging, school district officials said. It also can be difficult to properly investigate such incidents for the same reasons, they said.

“What is happening is that the message is getting transmitted instantly, so if there’s any type of incident—before the administrators can investigate, even before they can determine who’s involved—kids are sending messages out ... before we have a chance to get facts,” explained Superintendent J. Richard Boyes, Ed.D.

Officials also pointed to technology as part of a potential solution. Superintendent for Instruction Nicholas Dyno, Ed.D. suggested that in addition to reviewing the district’s cell phone policy, the district will encourage better communication with families via e-mail and Google Groups, online discussion groups that can be used much like e-mail.

Officials also cited the frequency of underclassmen socializing with upperclassmen as a concern in the rough-and-tumble high school social scene. Freshmen attending parties hosted by older students “[makes] the partners of those juniors and seniors furious,” said Dr. Dyno. That was a factor in each of the seven incidents that have led to out-of-school suspensions so far this school year, the former high school principal said.

Parents, however, suggested that fighting among students at Southampton High School has become pervasive: some at the meeting suggested that fights 
are much more frequent, while another woman shouted out that even seven are too many, since school has been in session for only five weeks. Dr. Boyes, trying to quell the visible outrage, urged parents not to jump to conclusions and warned that rumors spread rapidly and that hearsay is often mistaken for fact.

So far this year, the number of incidents has been higher than usual, the superintendent said in an interview Tuesday. The out-of-school suspensions involved 16 students. Typically, there are seven or eight such incidents in the course of an entire school year, Dr. Boyes said, adding that administrators do not have an explanation for the increase. Of the seven this year, six were classified as physical altercations, and the one last week that involved three girls was classified as an assault with injury. Usually one or two assaults occur at the school each year, he said.

A handful of teachers and students addressed the parents at Monday’s meeting to say that only a small fraction of students are involved in fights, and that there are groups that meet after school where students can discuss issues. Only a few School Board members were present and none spoke at the meeting.

Another issue discussed at the meeting was a threat that a former student was planning an act of violence at the high school this week. According to Southampton Village Police records, police received a phone call on the morning of Tuesday, October 12, from an anonymous parent reporting that his ninth grade son told him a former student had issued the threat to “shoot the place up.” When police called Dr. Mundell, the principal told police the school had received a similar anonymous call, police reports state. Dr. Mundell also told police that several students reported getting text messages saying that the gun violence would take place on Tuesday, October 19. One student connected with the incident had been identified, officials told police, and that student was to be interviewed by the school psychologist.

Police returned to the school the next day to follow up with James Gresham, the district’s director of security. According to police, Mr. Gresham said school officials had identified the student believed to have made the threat and determined that no such threat was ever made. Officials told police they had determined that a female student had told another student that the individual “seemed like the type that could bring a gun to school and shoot people,” and the rumor evolved from that.

Dr. Mundell opened Monday’s meeting by saying rumors had “run amok and out of control,” but that the district had been in close communication with police, and an investigation was launched immediately after learning of the supposed threat. He added that “the individual being portrayed as the perpetrator is really the victim” in the incident and said the original text message had been deleted before officials could see it, and that no students interviewed claimed to have experienced the threat firsthand but said they had only heard it from others.

Parents fired off a salvo of questions, complaints and outbursts directed at first-year principal Dr. Mundell, criticizing the handling of the event as well as what they thought was poor performance by school security guards. When Dr. Mundell switched gears to talk about last week’s assault involving students that injured one girl, there was an uproar among many parents after he referred to it as a “minor altercation.”

“It’s not minor!” one parent shouted. “Why were the two students back in school the next day?” another demanded, to applause. “Nothing was done. Nothing was done till the next day,” one woman muttered.

Two 17-year-old students were arrested by Village Police last Friday and accused of attacking a freshman girl on the football field during a fire drill last Thursday, October 14, Detective Sergeant Lamison said. The seniors were each charged with assault in the third degree and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors, and harassment in the second degree, a violation. The 14-year-old victim, who was treated for her injuries—including multiple contusions and footprints on her back from the older girls “stomping” her—at Southampton Hospital and released, was issued an order of protection, according to Det. Sgt. Lamison, who said police believe the fight took place over a boy and that tensions had escalated over the weeks leading up to the fight. The victim told police she was on the bleachers during the drill when the seniors pushed her against a fence and then to the ground.

Dr. Mundell tried to defend the school’s handling of the incident by saying the school needed time to receive the appropriate information and that the two accused girls were Board of Cooperative Educational Services students. But the salvo of questions only intensified. Others shouted over one another with critical words about the performance of the school security guards. “Three security people is absolutely out of control. Forget your turf field. Forget your lights,” hollered one woman in an accusatory tone, referring to recent additions to the school’s athletic field. “We need some security. We need our kids to be safe. And you need to hold up your mission statement that this is a safe environment—I don’t think it is.” The audience applauded those comments.

Administrators encouraged the parents to use Google Groups, an online discussion feature that the high school started this year. Dr. Dyno urged parents to reach out to administrators if they hear of any incidents and he guaranteed they would receive a response.