At the beginning of this school year, there were four fights in 13 days inside Monessen High School. Cell phones captured the huge fight that broke out in the cafeteria.
In the last five months, the district has made a ton of changes.
“We have not seen anything like we did at the beginning of the year. Have we had some problems? Yes. Have we had some physical encounters yes. But not as consistent. And the consistency of it happening as much as it was is a good thing,” Monessen School District Superintendent Dr. Robert Motte said.
“I feel safer now,” Bry’Aunna Cook said.
Cook is a freshman at Monessen. She remembers seeing this video of a fight in her school. Those videos of this fight circulated all over social media back in September. It started with a couple of students and quickly grew.
“It was very frustrating,” said Motte. “We couldn’t quite pinpoint why it was happening.”
Since then, they hired a full-time police officer and switched the lunches around to separate students by grade level. They also created Greyhounds on Patrol, which is made up of a group of parents and retired community members who walk the hallways.