REVERE, Mass. — Revere city councilors listened to the concerns of dozens of teachers and parents Monday night.
Many of them say the school environment is not safe.
“Weapons have been found in our building on numerous occasions over the last few years, I’m not stepping into a melee to get a blade in my ribs,” said Chris Kingston, a teacher at Revere High.
Teachers say there’s already been several fights at Revere High School just days into the new school year.
Michelle Ervin was two doors down from a brawl that broke out on the third day.
“It infuriates me that our superintendent and our school committee can’t take that seriously,” said Ervin, who’s also the co-president of the Revere Teachers Association.
Ervin says the assistant principal was injured in that huge fight.
“She was hurt and we should be really upset that our community member was hurt, seriously injured, everyone can see the video of her and hear her head hit the locker,” said Ervin.
The Revere Teachers Association says that’s just one of many examples of violence in the schools that needs to be addressed.
They presented a proposal to city leaders, urging for a new reporting system, among several other demands.
“So when there’s incidents of student dysregulation, violence against teachers or other students, there’s a way to kind of go back and look at that and see the trends,” said Jane Chapin, co-president of the RTA.
Some also support a city council motion to add more security or school resource officers to the schools.
The city council says it’ll explore more options for school safety, including looking into whether it’s feasible to add metal detectors to the schools.
They say they’re happy to collaborate with teachers on this moving forward.
“This is a public safety issue and this is well within the purview of the city council,” said Anthony Cogliandro, president of the city council.
City councilors also said they’d like to meet with school district leaders on how to come up with a better plan to make schools safer.
Boston 25 reached out to the superintendent about these issues Monday but hasn’t heard back.
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