Beaumont Enterprise
Olivia Malick, Staff writer
Sep. 15, 2022
Updated: Sep. 16, 2022 1:18 p.m.

There may soon be additional police officers at Beaumont ISD's two high schools, Beaumont United and West Brook.

At its September regular board meeting, District 1 Trustee Joe Evans suggested the district add additional law enforcement officers to its high schools for a trial period of a month to see if the presence of more officers curbs fighting between students.

The recommendation comes after a video of a fight that took place in a West Brook High School bathroom last week began circulating social media, putting a national spotlight on the district.

In the succeeding days, parents and community members alike have shown concern regarding the district's disciplinary procedures.

Community members turned out Thursday night to voice their opinions and listen to the district's response to a seeming increase of student fights.

District Superintendent Shannon Allen said since she's taken over the role in 2019, the district has improved in several areas, including academic performance.

However, the district still struggles with student disciplinary issues, despite efforts being made, she said.

Addressing the video of the West Brook fight, Allen said that there probably wasn't a person in the community, school district or boardroom Thursday night who is not outraged and disgusted by an act of violence being perpetrated against any student.

"It is deplorable to me and I'm frustrated," she said. "I'm angry and my frustration as a superintendent (stems from the) fact that an incident like this could happen in one of our schools."

While Allen said she wishes she could stop every act of violence from happening on a Beaumont ISD campus, she can't.

"There is no nation, there is no state, no institution, no school district or even anybody's home that you can ever say 100% that that place is safe," she said. "But I will not stop -- and I want to say this clearly -- I will not stop, we will not stop doing everything that we can possibly do to keep all of our students safe when they are in our care."

Beaumont ISD Director of Student Support Services Randall Maxwell went over historical student discipline data and the disciplinary procedures that are currently in place in the district.

So far in the 2022-23 school year, the district has seen about 200 disciplinary infractions, which range from fights to tardiness to insubordination, among other issues, Maxwell said.

The district uses a leveled discipline approach, utilizing actions such as suspensions, Pathways placement and expulsions depending on the severity of the disciplinary action and whether or not it is a repeat offense, Maxwell said.

Fights between students saw an increase in the 2018-19 and 2021-22 school years, with 834 and 775 fights taking place in those years, respectively.

After noticing that an increase in police officers did not deter fights, the school board earlier in the year voted to divert funding for some high school police officers to hiring public safety officers at each elementary school in the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

But on Thursday night, Evans suggested that the district work to immediately place more officers on the high school campuses and by Oct. 24, host a joint meeting with the Beaumont City Council to see if the district and city could work together to place Beaumont police officers at the high school campuses in order to sustain the program.

Allen said the district would look at the cost of adding more officers and come back to the board, with the potential for a special board meeting to be held next week.

Beaumont ISD Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Hernandez noted that the Beaumont Police Department budget does allow for the hiring of vacant positions, with Board President and At-Large Trustee Robert Dunn, Sr. adding that the department has had trouble recruiting officers for the vacant positions.

More than 80% of the board room's seats were filled Thursday night with five public commenters.

The first speaker was West Brook junior Saifan Panjwani who said he was concerned about the amount violence occurring on the campus.

"I want to touch on an incident that occurred last week," he said. "In my three years at the school, I've never witnessed an act as bad as the one I saw last week. I witnessed a student bleeding from his head unable to walk after being beaten in the bathroom by another student. This is an outrageous act of violence made me wonder what if it had been one of my friends? Or me?"

Panjwani said he was not critical of how the district was handling the issues but had suggestions for how the district could move forward, including adding more behavioral counselors for students to turn to.

The third commenter, Josh Tortorice, whose daughter attends West Brook, said that his family does not regret sending their daughter to the school some days. Volunteering in the Parents and Community Support program, Tortorice said he's seen first hand just how difficult it is to try and curb the student discipline issues.

"I did witness a day where we were locked down and I did witness kids completely ignore police, completely ignore administrators, principals and everything," he said. "So, I understand the challenges, (it's) a massive challenge for this school. And what I'm going to say to you all is the community will support you. But right now, your administrators, your teachers, everybody in that school, they're overwhelmed or they are understaffed...they need your help. They need more people."

All five commenters mentioned the district's disciplinary issues with some also agreeing that the district needed to add more police and/or security officers.

olivia.malick@hearst.com

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