‘They do what they want’: Crawford County student fights, often posted online, draw concern

Reality Check is a Telegraph series digging deeper into key issues and focusing on accountability. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email mynews@macon.com.

Britni Wilkes was convinced to make an Instagram page when she found out there was a page sharing dozens of fights at Crawford County Middle High School.

“I got intrigued enough to follow it,” she said. “My kids go here. I want to know what’s going on because you don’t hear anyone at the school talking about it.”

Wilkes said she found out about the page from one of her children and from a teacher at the school. The anonymously-run account has nearly 800 followers, and it may highlight a major issue at the school.

Fighting persistent in recent years

Youth violence has been a recurring issue for the Crawford school district over a course of five years, with 2021-2023 appearing to have the highest spikes in student behavior referrals at the elementary and middle schools, according to Big 7 Behavior Reports provided by school officials.

But the given figures only represent a small portion of discipline statistics in the Georgia Department of Education database, which factors in additional types of harm to a person.

The Crawford County School district had 903 disciplinary incidents in 2023, a 49% increase from 608 total incidents in 2022, according to the department’s K-12 Student Discipline Dashboard.

In 2023, 44% of the 903 total incidents throughout the district were described as harm to a person. The education department defines harm to a person as fighting, bullying, intimidation and seven other violent terms.

Nearly 70% of the discipline occurrences resulted in an in-school suspension.

Youth violence in Crawford County has a mental impact on its middle and high school students, with 30% reporting they are concerned about other students hurting them, according to the Department of Education’s 2023 student health survey.

The survey also found that 52% of sixth graders somewhat or strongly feel unsafe on campus or on their way to and from school. Eighty-one percent of Crawford County Middle High School students reported they somewhat or strongly agree that students at the school fight a lot.

Although most comments on the Instagram page support the videos, some users have spoken out against it.

“Y’all wrong for that that school I’m glad I left y’all kids need to grow up fr,” one commenter said several months ago. “Crawford still jumping kids is crazy. They all look like bullies…”

Wilkes said she and other parents are concerned about their children’s safety at a school with a culture for bullying and fighting, and she fears the school frequently “sweeps things under the rug.”

The page, titled “@crawford_fights”, has already shared more than 40 fights since the beginning of the 2023-24 academic year. It’s unclear if all the fights on the page happened at Crawford County Middle High School, but the combined school is one of only three schools in the district.

Videos feature school bus brawls, locker room confrontations and more. The page encourages students to send in footage.

“I just kind of feel like (school officials) don’t want to do anything about the fighting. They don’t take action either,” Wilkes said.

Crawford County schools: ‘Student safety is a priority’

Crawford County Middle High School Principal Aaron Randall declined comment when contacted for this story and referred questions to Superintendent Anthony Aikens.

Aikens said administrators are continuously looking for ways to make school environments safer within the Crawford County School District.

“Student safety is a priority for us here in the Crawford County School District and discipline plays a part in that,” he said in an email. Aikens could not be immediately reached to provide further comment about the issue.

Wilkes described Crawford County Middle High School as one big frat party where the school officials do not hold bullies accountable enough.

“They do what they want here,” she said.

She decided to take matters into her own hands when her 14-year-old daughter, Khloe, became a victim of bullying.

“I felt like every week, I was calling up to the school about something,” she said. “It got so severe that I’ve been forced to pull my daughter out of the school, and now she is homeschooled.”

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Amid Youth Violence Prevention Week, Wilkes said the Crawford school district should be more transparent about bullying and youth violence.

“I know there are safety protocols, and you can’t share everything, but you have these kids coming home everyday saying three, five fights broke out,” she said. “Parents want to know what’s going on.”

According to Wilkes, Crawford Middle High School needs more resource officers to handle youth violence on campus, where students have previously attacked administrators as well. Local TV station 13WMAZ reported that a Crawford high school student was arrested for allegedly attacking an assistant principal late last year.

Students can anonymously contact the education department’s 24-hour school safety hotline to report bullying and fighting incidents. Law enforcement may be contacted depending on the urgency of the call.

The state education department also provides school districts in Georgia with a comprehensive bullying prevention toolkit, said spokesperson Meghan Frick. The listed resources assist educators, parents and students on how to identify bullying and safely address it.

Layla Fitzgerald, director of community programs at the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, manages the Free Your Feels campaign, which offers youth nonjudgmental platforms to freely talk about their mental health.

“It’s important to educate and train adults about the negative effects of mental health so that they’re able to recognize warning signs before they become behavior or bullying problems in schools,” she said.