‘Traumatized': How to address the violence scarring students in Mass. schools?

"She had grabbed my hair and threw me onto the ground."

That's how a Boston eighth grade student remembers her beating, by a fellow student down the street from their school, this March.

The 13-year-old Condon School student suffered a broken rib, cuts and bruises, and says she's now scarred physically and emotionally.

"It traumatized me," she said. "I couldn't sleep for a while because I kept getting flashbacks and nightmares."

The attack is one of several recent examples of violence playing out at Massachusetts schools and, like others, it was glorified on social media through an Instagram account.

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The teen said she told school staff she was being bullied and accused of being a snitch in the days leading up to her attack, but the school didn't do anything to protect her.

The student described the school environment as "not safe." Her mother called the beating "heartbreaking."

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper said in a statement the district works continuously to create a safe environment: “The safety and well-being of our young people is our highest priority and violence of any kind is unacceptable.”

There's an ongoing criminal investigation in the Condon School attack.

Violence has also been in the spotlight at Boston Tech, where a student was stabbed; in Lynn, where an assistant principal was stabbed; and multiple brawls in Brockton.

Discipline data for the largest school districts in Massachusetts shows the percentage of students being disciplined has dropped in recent years.

Last year Brockton had the highest discipline percentage in that group last school year, followed by Springfield, Lowell, Lynn, Worcester, Boston and Lawrence.

Kevin McCaskill stepped in as principal at Brockton High School in January. After a spike in violence months ago, there were calls from some in the community to bring in the National Guard to restore the peace.

"We did create an in-house suspension program for some students who needed to have some redirection and so those little pieces have really added to try to clean up the culture of the building," he said.

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He described the calls to bring in the National Guard, which Gov. Maura Healey eventually ruled out, as "a rallying point" for staff and students alike — "we are nowhere near that point where we need the armed forces coming in to corral students."

School police make the rounds on campus, everyone passes through metal detectors before stepping foot in the building, IDs are scanned and more security has been added. McCaskill and his staff also have increased their presence in the halls and worked to build relationships with students here.

One of the biggest challenges, McCaskill said, is the lack of staff day to day, leaving many kids hanging in a supervised study hall in the cafeteria.

Each school has its own challenges at a time when many students are struggling socially, emotionally and with their mental health. Experts say the pandemic, peer pressure, video games and social media are having a huge impact on their behavior in schools.

Dr. Meghan McCoy, a psychologist from the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, visits schools across the state on a mission to help kids navigate the complex world of social media and relationships and to prevent violence.

"What I've heard from teachers and in schools and administrators is kids just don't know how to get along and it leads to more aggression and more violence," McCoy said. "A high school student said to me, 'Right after COVID, we came back to school and it was like we forgot to talk to people from other groups.'"

McCoy said we need to decrease the normalization of disrespectful behavior that is sometimes rooted in the online world and put the phones away, especially in school.

"One of the big things that I'm coming back to over and over again is trying to provide kids some space where technology is not a part of it," she said.

Many schools are looking into banning cellphones to help. Next year, Brockton High School students will lock their phones in pouches during school hours, which many schools in Boston already do.