Updated at 10:15 p.m. to include Board of Education candidate statement.
The video is 27 seconds long. In a quick shot at the beginning, a young man wearing khakis and a collared shirt punches another man in the face and knocks him to the ground.
Students scramble and scream as the man, wearing a ski mask, falls and lies motionless. The description of the video, posted on worldstarhiphop.com, is: “Girl send’s [sic] father to fight a boy for throwing a French fry… But gets knocked out by a 17-year-old!”
The video was filmed at Long Reach High School, according to school officials.
The video was posted on March 21 and has been viewed over 512,000 times as of noon on Thursday. “Long Reach” was trending on Twitter in the Baltimore region last night.
Patti Caplan, a spokesperson for Howard County Schools, said an adult, a non-student, came on campus at about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday wearing a ski mask. She said the man confronted one of the Long Reach students, threw a punch at him and missed. The student, a junior who is on the football team, then swung back and landed a knockout blow.
“The individual that was hit was unconscious,” said Caplan, “[He] did gain consciousness but refused help and walked off campus.”
Caplan said the man wasn’t arrested and the student wasn’t disciplined because it was determined he acted in self-defense. She said the incident is under investigation by the school resource officer and officials haven’t determined if the man was, in fact, a student’s father.
Howard County Police spokesperson Sherry Llewellyn said two people are being investigated in relation to the incident.
"At this point, the school resource officer has charged the female juvenile involved with the assault." said Llewellyn, "She's 15 and from Columbia. We anticipate charges from the male adult who was involved. He will likely be charged with assault as well as disorderly conduct."
Llewellyn did not elaborate on how the female was involved with the assault. She said the man was from Baltimore, but did not release his name or relation to the female. Police placed additional officers on duty for dismissal time at the school and at the village center on Thursday afternoon, according to Llewellyn.
Principal David P. Burton sent out an email notifying parents and the community about the incident on Thursday afternoon.
“We are aware that the incident was taped and that the video has gone viral on the Internet," he wrote. "As always, precautions are being taken to ensure the safety of all students and staff.”
Stefani Rodriguez, a parent of a Long Reach student, said fights and bullying are common at Long Reach.
“My daughter said this kind of thing happens all the time at the school,” said Rodriguez. “It’s unfortunate that it has escalated to this. Someone is going to get hurt at this school.”
Rodriguez said her daughter has been bullied frequently by students at Long Reach and that the school has pushed problems like fights and bullying “under the rug.”
“It’s just relentless,” said Rodriguez. “When I have a child that begs me not to go to school because it’s upsetting her and she doesn’t feel safe then there’s a real problem.”
Caplan said that bullying and fights are problems at all Howard County schools, but that there are programs and policies in place to address them.
“I have no evidence that [fights and bullying] are any more prevalent at Long Reach High,” said Caplan.
Board of Education candidate Corey Andrews, who is also a senior at Howard High School, addressed the incident in a press release on Thursday evening.
"We are concerned with the way it was handled and the events following the incident," wrote Andrews." This incident has caused other complaints of violence, bullying, harassment and disrespect at Long Reach High School to arise. We propose that the Board of Education take action to immediately commission a task force to investigate this incident and other negative behavior at Long Reach High School."
Caplan said there was an incident involving French fries being thrown in the cafeteria either earlier that day or earlier in the week that may have been related to the fight. She said there was some antagonism between a football player and a girl before the incident occurred.
Certainly students, teachers and administrators need to isolate and educate the few disruptive students who exist in each HC HS and MS. We always can do better. However I dont think anyone here has noted that most urban and suburban school systems would embrace the environment, grades and success of the students at LRHS and indeed envy it. You know, the "grass is always greener". And no, that's NOT a drug reference for you cynics out there. Thanks again Kayla for your wisdom. Good luck with your plans!
We spend more than ten grand a yr in Howard, and so do jurisdicitions like PG and Mtgmy. B City spends enough to send its kids to pretty nice charters, privates and homeschool programs too! So be careful where you step. If the Nochhild, Race to the Top and other fads dont' produce grads with world class skills in just a few yrs who can compete with Europ, Asian and even middle class Latin American academic HS grads, then we may indeed have to consider turning our public schools after grade 6 or 7 into career based apprentice programs. Students with abstract reasoning high skills simply can be given the 10-15 grand per year taxpayers supply. New quality private schools will spring up to supplement what Catholic and top schools like Glenelg, Mcdonough and others now do.
Isn't that better?
I have no personal knowledge of LRHS, my children attend Glenelg. So what business do I have here? The issues in Longreach, Glenelg and every other school are the same. The state assessments are some of the easiest in the country and the hcpss teaches to the test. 90% of all howard county children will go to college where half of them will need substantial remedial education. The majority of all hcpss graduates will drop out of college and have no vocational or technical training to fall back on. Most of our children will never be able to afford to live in Howard county. Yes our schools are segregated and wealth makes a difference regardless of our race. The most important aspect of a childs life is family. Family is the real game changer. All of our schools have problems and the administration of the hcpss does everything it can to hide them. Our current BOE allows this to happen. Next week the BOE will hire a new superintendent to lead our schools. No one asked any of us what is right or wrong in our schools. HCPSS left all of us out of the process. If our schools really cared about our children we would adopt a student bill of rights and allow our young adults to have both pride in ownership and control of their future.
Grasmick to overhaul teacher training at Towson University "Schools of education across the country are coming under fire for not adequately preparing graduates and are being pressed to give students a better grounding in what they will face when they begin teaching. Recent education reforms have focused on improving teacher quality, including how teachers are prepared, evaluated and supported in their earlier years." Personally, I believe they hired part of the problem. Well at least they admit there is one.
Seriously, you really want transparent sources but chose to be nameless? 90% graduate is proudly touted at both the Howard county and hcpss website. The reality 50% need remedial education and the phenomenal dropout rate can be found at every college website in the country. Absolutely nothing can be found on the hcpss website to indicate anything beyond the illusion our schools are great but then they do not boast our graduates continue these numbers in college either. Look close to home at HCC which recieves the lions share of hcpss graduates and the HCC graduation rate is only 12%. If you want to know exactly how well hcpss graduates do in college and present unbiased straight facts to the citizens of Howard county then you and I can go publicly to the hcpss and demand they provide accountability for their claims for success. You should also look at atate assessments, ours are some of the easiest in the country which means a passing grade here is unacceptable in many states.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=sSM4LnAxxQk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=NYmRUx9-0YU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_qkYjfLufg
I pulled this from Howardpubliced to give readers a place to start understanding what goes on in our math class Call Bill Barnes, coordinator of secondary mathematics at HCPSS. I first heard the statistic from him in a presentation on the Race to the Top initiative on Sept 21, 2010. He said that 25% of all HCPSS graduates (almost 1000 students) enter Howard Community College. Of those, over half are required to take remedial math. This is not just a problem in Howard County, but for all of Maryland. Read "More Remedial Math" by Jerome Dancis, a professor at the University of Maryland at College Park: http://www.facultyvoice.umd.edu/All%20past%20issues/2009-2010/FV_V23_N3.pdf. He points out that only 1/3 of MD high school graduates have enough math to enroll in STEM courses in college. The cause of the problem appears to be changes in the curriculum of Algebra 1 when the HSA tests were introduced. Read: http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/story/2639. The curriculum switched from the traditional Algebra 1 (factoring polynomials, exponents, radicals) to data analysis which is not the basis for the upper level math courses or the sciences. It appears the UMBC's president (Freeman Hrabowski) also agrees: http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~jnd/On.MD.MAA%20.htm
The long-term strategic issue isn't how LRHS measures up against RHHS or MRHS. It's how any of them measure up against the top schools elsewhere, from Mexico City to Moscow, from Beijing to Mumbai.
You're a good friend for mentioning this; talking to some other adults can help your friend get help. Although it might seem like a good idea to help the child yourself, it's safest for everyone involved to get help. If you need any advice, you can call 1-800-784-2433 (toll-free suicide crisis line), 911, or any of the numbers listed here: http://www.suicide.org/hotlines/maryland-suicide-hotlines.html Again, you're a great friend for mentioning this. Best of luck! :)
Obviously in this example things are a bit different, an adult trersspassing and trying to assault a student will be handled by law enforecement.
You cannot expect the teachers and staff to immediately respond to the misbehavior. This is a parenting problem-probably little to no structure, support, or discipline at the homes of these kids who cause trouble. By the way I heard from a Howard County teacher that the teachers at River Hill hate teaching there because of the obnoxious parents who want to know why little Suzie or Johnny did not get an A for their C level work. Also lot of these rich kids are into drugs and like to flaunt their wealth.
This last message has haunted me. I have given a lot of thought to what you are saying my whole life.
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