High School Question

They usually call the security in my school, and I'm not really sure, but I think their parents are notified and it's an automatic suspension.

Physical fight? Suspension.

At my high school it depended. A major verbal fight (like of the sort that disturbs other students) would most likely get you detention or possibly just a visit to the headmaster's office.
A small physical scuffle (you know, a little shoving but nothing actually serious) would be detention, probably more than one day.
Major fight, suspension.

I went to a high school in rural Vermont, though, where there was no security and no really good system to deal with this.

eta: I'm guessing if it was just swearing at each other that would probably be a headmaster/principal visit or maybe detention.

In our school system, suspensions usually are 2 to 3 days at home. Not sure what an "in-school" suspension would be. Are you thinking of detentions? I think if there were no blows, just swearing, or even with blows but no blood drawn, then they'd probably serve a detention.

And if its a repeat offense of fighting, they might get expelled from school all together.

If the fight is serious (forget about guns and knives), with real severe injuries, the school might just call the Police.

It really depends on the location of the school and how tightly run it is. I went to a zoo of a junior high. A kid threw a chair at a student and got sent to principal's office, but no suspension and no detention and parents not notified.

Went to a reputable high school where fighting is one to two weeks suspension. Verbals fights the security will just tell you to cut it out with no penalty unless you don't obey.

In the high schools I've worked in (there have been several, mostly in Maine along with one in New Hampshire and one in Massachusetts), a situation like the one you've written and posted here would at most be detention. Also, most likely both boys would be sent to the office.

Because no blows were struck, it's unlikely that suspension would even be threatened... UNLESS Chris has been in trouble quite a bit before. At the schools where I've worked, consequences tend to be cumulative; that is, a student might receive a warning, then a detention, then a run of detentions, and so on. So if Chris has worked his way up the "trouble chain", suspension might be threatened because of his previous offenses.

BrigidMary23 said:

If a boy picks a fight with another boy in class, what's likely to happen? (Think 17 year olds, not 12 year olds) Sent to the office? A friend of mine is a high school teacher, and she says they call security if students start to fight. Would parents be called? Detention? Demerits? Suspension? I'm pretty good with culture stuff, but not so on top of actual regulations when it comes to high school.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!!

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At my school, if the teachers saw, they would break it up and both would be sent to the office, and both would be suspended for, I think, maybe 10 days. I would have to look it up in the handbook they gave us each year with the punishments of fighting.

One time, though, two high school guys got in a fight and my Bio I & II teacher (he retired a year before I was a senior, never got to have him for anatomy ), Mr. Sexton, actually tackled one of the guys down to stop the fighting. He was like 60 years old and still managed to do it. xD It was really the only way to stop the fight since the guy he tackled was choking the other guy.

My (ETA: old) school:

1. Heated argument -- nothing, someone might be sent out of the class or they'd both be told to go away to cool off

2. Pushing -- they'd be scolded, pretty much the same thing as a heated argument

3. Brief fight and the teacher hears about it afterwards -- they'd get a detention, or if the teacher is nice they'd talk to them and ask them about it, things like why it happened, but not do anything

4. Brief fight and the teacher breaks it up -- if they were lucky and the teacher isn't an ass they'd get a detention, and the teacher would basically deal with it him/herself. If they're unlucky the teacher will take it higher and there'll be a suspension. Suspensions were generally two days in my old school.

4. Violent fight and a teacher hears afterward -- definitely suspension

5. Violent fight and a teacher breaks it up -- likely suspension, POSSIBLY expulsion if the student consistently fights (or if they've almost killed the other kid lol)

***Time also matters. Is it exam time? Or what? I'm ashamed to say I got into a fight with a boy (though he came for me unprovoked, he was trying to make himself look good I think) and the fight got pretty messy; there was blood. Most of it was his (I'm not ashamed to say that my fists are like iron ) but because it was around exam time we both got detentions, rather than being suspended. Also if one of them is experiencing things, like a family member or friend has just died, then they may get let off.
OH! And the punishment is definitely dampened if they have a good record. Teachers will be more lenient if they know a student is good natured, because they will feel that the student must really have been pushed.

the scene you posted...they'd probably be sent to the office and talked to, def. could threaten suspension, and I would guess parents would be called, but it would also depend on the history of the kids. if this is their first altercation (and the worst that happened was actually the dropping of an f-bomb), I could see a detention (my school does have in-school suspension, which results in the student sitting in the office, sometimes for the rest of the day, sometimes for another day or two.) fwiw, I work in a middle school, but if two students did something like that in my class (and they have), that's what would happen. In the high school where I taught, it probably would have been similar.

If you want a threatened phonecall then you could have Chris walk toward Tommy. Mr. Beamis tells him to sit down but he keeps going. Mr. Beamis repeats it, slightly angrier, but Chris talks over him (something about how he should or will hit Tommy, or something that expresses his dislike). Tommy taunts him and states that he wouldn't dare, or tries to goad him into trying. It seems like Chris is going to punch him, and by this time Mr. Beamis is completely fuming. He yells at Chris to get out and go to the office.

Or something.

BrigidMary23 said:

If a boy picks a fight with another boy in class, what's likely to happen? (Think 17 year olds, not 12 year olds) Sent to the office? A friend of mine is a high school teacher, and she says they call security if students start to fight. Would parents be called? Detention? Demerits? Suspension? I'm pretty good with culture stuff, but not so on top of actual regulations when it comes to high school.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!!

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Around here (is it a CA thing?) every high school has a deputy sheriff, and in case of a fight, campus supervisors usually start breaking it up, but it goes to a VP and the sheriff. If it's not bad, a 3 day suspension. If it's bad, longer, and likely criminal charges.

My school doesn't have detention.

haystackbat said:

My school doesn't have detention.

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Mine didn't either. A lot of schools around here have OCR.

So Tommy is defending Becca? Typically, telling someone to fuck off doesn't start a fight, unless both of them are looking for one. I'd add more tension to it, and have Tommy grab Chris by the throat. That way, you'd have light contact, clear aggression, and a perfect reason to threaten the pair with suspension.

I've never had to deal with people fighting in the school where I work; they're afraid of what I'd do to them.

I think it depends on the type of school. Public or Private? How big is the school? Is there a lot of violence at the school. At a private school unless someone gets very hurt the kid would probably have to go the principals office (private schools love those big bucks parents stuff down their throats so student accountability can be low). However if the school is bigger and has issues with violence the kid could be taken by a security guard and find himself in the back of a police cruiser within 15 mintutes! Just depends on the setting!

I know you've probably figured this out, but my take --

Depends on the severity of the fight. If it's a full-scale fight -- punching, kicking -- then we'd either get put in something called Isolation or suspended. If it's very severe, we could get expelled, but there would have to be a lot of blood etc. If you need parents to be called and suspension threatened (skim reading), it would have to be a moderate fight with no serious injury and provocation of some kind.

Oh, yeah, but I've been in classrooms where there has been a physical fight and the teachers have just broken it up and sent them outside. There are a lot of variables.

At my high school we had a 'no tolerance' rule for fighting. If you were caught fighting then the person who started the fight received three days suspension and the person who was being 'beaten up' received one day suspension.