Ferris High School freshman Sharaya Jeter was having lunch in the school’s library Oct. 19 when she heard “screaming” in the hallway, prompting her to put down her lunch and see what the commotion was all about. According to Jeter, students were fighting in the lobby.
In the aftermath of a large food fight in the cafeteria that caused injuries and drew police into the fray, leading to a lockdown and two students arrested and six suspended, Jeter is questioning whether she wants to continue at the school. She is not optimistic about such incidents stopping. She has already taken a test to gain admittance into the new Infinity Institute, the school district’s new magnet school for seventh, eight, and ninth graders located in the city’s Greenville section.
“I was told that one group of kids was taking pictures and the other group did not like it.” – Alyssia Marte-Speaks
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Though not all at Ferris and Dickinson students are considering a school move as Jeter is, the recent disturbances have students, parents, and school officials concerned, with all three weighing in on the situation and how to fix it.
Throwing garbage and fists
The incident at Ferris High School on Merseles Street, according to the school district’s spokesperson Paula Christen, started in the school’s cafeteria around noon on Oct. 19, after a student allegedly threw food at another group of students. That soon escalated into a larger fight, with students throwing bottles, garbage cans, and fists and causing injuries. Police were called in to break up the fighting, arresting two, while other students continued to exchange blows with police in their midst.
Two security guards were injured, but not seriously. Christen said the arrested students are back at school and the six suspended students are still suspended pending further action by the district.
Police Chief Thomas Comey said last week investigators were still studying videotape from the Ferris incident to determine exactly what led to the incident.
The day after the Ferris incident, students at Dickinson High School on Newark Avenue were involved in a fight that started outside the school and continued inside, with eight students arrested on charges of rioting and disorderly conduct. Christen said seven of the eight students were suspended but no one was injured.
That same day, police were called back to Ferris to deal with another “food fight.” Since then, there have been no reports of any incidents at either school.
Middle of the action
Alyssia Marte-Speaks, a sophomore Ferris student, was taking lunch outside the school the day of the initial “food fight.” She was walking back into the building just after the fight and saw fellow students getting upset and “rowdy” as they learned of the fight from cell phone calls from kids in the cafeteria. The lunch room, per school policy, is closed off during lunch and kids inside are not allowed to leave until after the lunch period ends.
“I was told that one group of kids was taking pictures and the other group did not like it,” Marte-Speaks said. “My friends told me that it was the Spanish kids that threw the bread.”
The sophomore said there had been food fights in the cafeteria for several days before between a group of African-American kids and Dominican kids, some of whom she knows, but the ruckus did not rise to the level of the Oct. 19 incident. She said within a few minutes, police officers had rushed into the school to quell the disturbance.
“[The officers] came into the school and were throwing kids against the wall,” Marte-Speaks said.
Looking back at the incident, she doesn’t understand why these two groups are fighting with one another, saying they are “good kids.” Marte-Speaks thinks someone should come into the school and find out what was bothering those kids and why.
Despite the incident and what has occurred previously, she likes the school and wants to continue as a student.
Sylvis Speaks, Alyssia’s mother and a member of the school’s parent-teacher council, said she is angry at the portrayal of the incident in the local daily newspaper of the high school as “out-of-control,” when the incident was the product of a handful of kids acting out against each other.
But Speaks admits this recent incident made her “very stressful” and she wonders how to ensure her daughter’s safety.
Addressing the issue
Discussions with the school’s principal, Jaime Morales, have made Speaks more optimistic. She says he has implemented a policy since the incident, in which passes to the cafeteria are given to a limited group of students who will actually eat lunch rather use the cafeteria as a place to hang out. Also, additional security officers have been stationed at the school since the incident, and students recently addressed the entire student body over the school PA system asking them to refrain from engaging in disruptive behavior.
Angel Valentin, a member of the Jersey City School Board, the father of a Ferris student, and an alumnus of the school, has some ideas on how to eliminate certain stressors that may lead to such activity.
Valentin said the board at their previous meeting on Oct. 28 spoke about the Ferris and Dickinson happenings and listened to some residents also speak on the matter.
Valentin has some ideas on how both high schools can prevent future incidents from occurring in the future.
“I would change the block scheduling that currently exists so that classes are broken down into smaller periods so kids don’t stay in class for too long,” said Valentin about the current schedule that has students in class for 80-minute blocks.
Valentin also thinks the lunch schedule should be changed to the one that was in existence when he was Ferris High student during the early 1970s – a staggered schedule calling for freshmen to have lunch but kept on the school campus while sophomores would be let out after a certain period, followed by juniors, and then seniors. Valentin’s reasoning for this is so not many students would have lunch at once.
Valentin is also pushing for a “zero tolerance” policy by the school district to make sure students who are suspended stay away from the school.
Police Chief Comey said he has recommended to schools superintendent Dr. Charles Epps that schools restrict the use of cell phones. He said police reacted appropriately to both incidents and sent in not just regular officers, but also those who work in elementary schools through the G.R.E.A.T. program that operates in the elementary schools dealing with issues of gangs and conflict resolution. Comey also believes the incidents at Dickinson and at Ferris go beyond just the kids.
“People want to hold the police accountable, but where are the parents in all of this?” Comey commented.
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.