violence, crime normal in NC schools? your kids schools?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

I am wondering if its widespread to have at least
one or two fights in the high schools each week?

Is it normal for kids to on a regular basis to try
to steal other kids lunches, coats and pocket books?

Is it normal for it to be common for girls to be
throwing up in the bathrooms due to morning sickness?

I'm talking about NC, and in my case, Winston Salem High Schools.

[benEzra]

1. I don't think it's a statewide thing...

I think the schools are pretty good around here (Craven county), but our kids aren't in high school yet so I can't say for sure.

[supernova]

2. Might be more of a big city

thing rather than an NC thing. What you are describing sounds similar to a HS I subbed at in Charlotte, in the early 90s, which was widely considered to be the roughest school in town.

[LeVeL_HeAdEd_OnE]

3. My wife used to teach in...

Wilson. Never had complaints about the issues you raise...just the lousy pay!

[dsc]

8. which school?

I worked at Beddingfield for a time.

[wageslave71]

4. We have lived in three areas of NC

My son is still in elementary school. He's been to New Hanover Co., Lincoln Co., and Stokes Co. I like Stokes the best, and we are just up the road from you. His teacher presents him with a challenging curriculum. She was an electrical engineer before returning to college and becoming a teacher. As far as behavior, the students here are much better behaved according to my son and from what I have seen. Also, the high school aged kids here seem to be very respectful and mannerly. I don't see indications of a drug culture or underage pregnancies. That being said, I don't live in King, NC and from my experience, I would expect it to have some of those problems.

New Hanover was terrible. Incompetent teachers, disruptive students, drugs and violence in the high schools. If my son forgot to bring home his coat for example, it was as good as gone. I got tired of going to pick my son up after school and finding him hiding by himself because of older bullies. The supervision dismissed it as "just being kids". At the local HS, some kids from a rival school drove down during school hours and beat one of the students into a coma. I guess that was "just being kids". There were 4 or 5 kids like 16-20 yo that died from drug ODs the year before we moved there. That was just in our town, not in Wilmington. The upper class folks that move to the coast there send their kids to private schools or charter/magnet schools.

Lincoln County is where I lived most of my life and my mom retired from the school system there. I also have numerous friends who are teachers, two who are now principals, and one on the Board of Education. While violence is not a huge problem, drug use is. Whether its drug use by the parents/adults in the homes or by the students themselves, it is the biggest obstacle for education. In the rural areas it is crystal meth. In the towns it is coke/crack.

We may be moving back to Lincoln Co. in the next year and my mom's advice is to put my son in private school. I consider the change of school systems to be the biggest drawback to moving there.

[carolinablue]

5. schools

I work in an elementary school in Charlotte and have a child in middle school and one in elementary. My niece is in high school and my sister is a high school teacher. I have not had any of the problems you talk about. There are occasional fights at the middle and high schools ( and very occasionally at the elementary school). I know there are some schools in Charlotte that might have some similar concerns but I have not, fortunately, had that experience. My children do not go to the more affluent schools, but they don't go to the very disadvantaged schools, either.

My sister says there is a lot of underage drinking among the kids at her school. She teaches in a very affluent area - so I don't think it's just the "street kids" .

[CRK7376]

6. I graduated from, and taught at South Stokes for 13 years

Spent a year and a half up at North Stokes and was supposed to teach at West Stokes when it first opend, but I went back in the Army....I'll retire from Uncle Sam in a few years and return to teaching. My family and I still live in the area, just across the highway from King. I commute home form Ft. Bragg on the weekends. My eldest is a senior at Reagan and sees drug busts on campus from time to time. Not many, but don't fool yourself, plenty of pregnancy and drug problems in the rural schools as in the urban schools. Fights happen, mostly just lots of windmilling with little contact, hair pulling and lots of yelling. Personally I prefer rural schools and the kids in my classes were mostly well mannered kids...Good admistration and support for the teachers for the most part, but I crushed most discipline problems on my own rather than having kid sent to office only to flipflop back into my class room a few minutes later with little or no punishment...When I first started subbing prior to being hired in Stokes County I worked all over WSFC school system and routinely hated working at Carver, North Forsyth, Reynolds and Wiley. One or two bad apples cause problems for the entire class/school.

[wageslave71]

7. Maybe I should clarify myself

I believe Stokes Co. schools and the culture in general is an improvement to the other two areas of the state I have experienced. While I am sure there are some problems here, they certainly aren't blatantly obvious as they have been elsewhere.

That being said, just yesterday my eight year-old tells me that his asst. teacher discussed Nancy Pelosi with the class. She identified Ms. Pelosi as a Democrat and told them that Democrats are "free-wheeling" while Republicans are "religious" and "old-fashioned".

By the way, my son pointed out to me that Jesus didn't ride an elephant. LOL!

[CRK7376]

9. Plenty of strong Repugs

in Stokes County unfortunately. Most of the School BOard is Repug...oh well...