More than 6 million people viewed the video posted to X in March. A high school student appeared to sucker punch another in the back of the head, then got out of his seat and swung again.
The other student fell to the ground, wailing. Both attended Ashbrook High School in Gaston County.
Just weeks earlier on March 3, another fight made headlines after a 10th-grade student at Mallard Creek High School in north Charlotte said she was attacked by seven other girls, sustaining a concussion. Later that week, a female student said a male student attacked her at Ardrey Kell High School in south Charlotte.
In an age when nearly every student is armed with a smartphone, videos of physical fights often make their way onto social media and TV screens. But are schools actually less safe than before?
The crime rate in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has decreased after a spike following the pandemic, state data show , though it still is slightly above pre-pandemic levels. Experts, students and parents agree that challenges like social media and staffing shortages play a role in shaping the current landscape of school safety in North Carolina. And, while fights between students often get a lot of attention online, they're not a main concern when it comes to student safety, according to students, educators and parents who spoke to The Charlotte Observer.
NC school safety perceptions
The prevalence of fights depends on who you ask.
"Fights are pretty common at my school," said Quinten Canty, a rising senior at West Charlotte High School. "The staff is great, and they do what they can. But the school is overcrowded, which leads to a likelihood of more fights."
Canty said conflicts often start outside of school and then students bring those animosities into the school building.
"It's not school itself that's a problem," he said. "It's more that there are some people that bring outside negative energy into school and end up fighting at school."
While the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction collects district-specific data about criminal offenses in schools, it does not record data related to physical fights among students, an NCDPI spokesperson told The Charlotte Observer.
Lucy Silverstein is a student at Providence High School and the current student advisor to the CMS Board of Education. She says fighting is rare at her school and that student safety concerns revolve more around the possibility of external threats, including school shootings or, recently, the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near schools.
"When I think of school safety, I think of both physical and mental safety," she said. "I feel physically safe at school, but other things can play into feeling mentally safe, like being prepared for things like active shooter threats … And I think race and ethnicity can play a role, too, especially now with what's happening with I.C.E. and immigration."
Silverstein said she believes CMS can do more to prepare students for what to do in the event of an active shooter emergency. Another CMS student, Marley Hefner, told the CMS Board of Education earlier this month the two lockdown drills at her school this year were "messy and uncoordinated."
"Students need more than two lockdown drills," Hefner said at the board meeting June 5. "Whether it's more lockdown drills, lessons or simply being able to openly speak about it more, we need students and staff to be much more prepared for shootings and violence."
Karla Stovall is the Parent Teacher Student Association president at Ardrey Kell High School. She said, even after the altercation at her school in March, she's heard relatively few concerns from parents about fights.
"I think folks basically know that fights are going to sometimes happen in high school. You have people that are learning how to be grown-ups, and they don't always know what to say or do," she said. "But nothing has been heightened, as far as what's been expressed to me."
Like Silverstein, Stovall said the majority of concerns she hears from parents are about the possibility of an active shooter situation, not about fights among students.
The Observer spoke to three CMS educators about whether they feel safe at school. Each requested anonymity, but none indicated they feel unsafe day-to-day due to violence. One mentioned concerns about school shootings but said she believes every educator likely feels some degree of fear about that - not just in CMS.
What the data show
The crime rate in CMS increased after the COVID-19 pandemic when students returned to in-person instruction. It has decreased since the 2021-22 school year - the first year students were back in-person - and hovers slightly higher than it was prior to the pandemic.
The overall crime rate in CMS was 10.07 acts per 1,000 students during the 2023-24 school year. That's calculated based on all instances of illegal offenses, including weapon possession, assault and, most commonly, drug possession. During the 2022-23 school year, the rate was slightly lower, at 9.97 acts per 1,000 students.
In the five years prior to the onset of the pandemic, the overall crime rate sat between 8 and 9.5 acts per 1,000 students.
During the 2023-24 school year, the rate of assault in CMS decreased to 1.87 per 1,000 students, which is in line with pre-pandemic numbers, according to state data. That includes assaults on school personnel, sexual assaults, assaults with a weapon and assaults with "serious bodily injury." The state doesn't report a specific statistic for assaults on students like it does for assaults on personnel.
The overall crime rate didn't decrease with the rate of assaults, largely because drug possession charges surpassed a 10-year high . More than 60% of the crimes recorded in CMS in the 2023-24 school year were possession of a controlled substance, accounting for 858 out of 1,414 total incidents.
The rate of suspensions in CMS, the vast majority of which are short-term, increased post-pandemic but decreased between the 2021-22 school year and 2023-24 school year.
Statewide, the rate of crime and violence in schools decreased, according to the latest data from NCDPI. Around 77% of NC schools reported zero to five acts of violence during the 2023-24 school year.
Social media
Students and experts alike agree that social media and a slow adjustment after the pandemic are huge challenges when it comes to school safety.
"The biggest issue is socialization… When you get back, the numbers go up because people are adjusting to being back in school and learning in a different environment," said Karen Fairley, director of the NC Center for Safer Schools. "Socialization with other people was minimized, and now you have to readjust to life in school with other people again."
Fairley said the ubiquity of social media causes problems. Even when kids don't use their phones at school, social media behaviors outside of school have an impact.
"We see professionals, politicians, parents, adults who are supposed to be role models engaging in that type of behavior online, and our children are watching," she said. "So, they're going to mimic what they see."
Canty said he believes most conflicts at West Charlotte start online, usually on Instagram.
"The majority of fights that occur happen over social media, and then transfer to a physical altercation," he said. "It usually starts on Instagram, but also on Snapchat, maybe even TikTok."
The Center for Safer Schools launched Teen Tech Talk Tuesday in 2022. On its Facebook, Instagram and X accounts, it offers tips each Tuesday for keeping teens safe online. Still, Fairley said it's critical for parents to talk to their kids about social media, limit teen phone use to certain times of the day and monitor what their kids are doing online.
CMS requires phones to be "off and put away" during school hours. Each school can decide how to enforce the rule.
Stovall said the policy has been a step in the right direction.
Of the 115 school districts in North Carolina, 77 have implemented cellphone use policies , and legislation is moving through the General Assembly that would require the rest to do the same. NC House Bill 87 would require all K-12 public schools in North Carolina to adopt a policy eliminating or severely limiting student access to cell phones in the classroom. It overwhelmingly passed the House and currently awaits a vote in the Senate.
As of January, all public school districts in South Carolina must have a policy requiring students to have their phones off and away during the school day.
Staffing challenges
Canty and Stovall alike said staff shortages can prevent educators from closely monitoring safety issues that arise in school.
"The staff at West Charlotte, including the security team and the teachers, do a great job at trying to combat these situations and prevent them, but they can't be in multiple places at once," Canty said. "In spreading everybody out, it weakens their ability to prevent these fights."
Stovall said she'd like to see more support for educators, including more teaching assistants.
"I feel like our teachers have so much that they do during the day that it's difficult for them to monitor these situations that can get out of control," she said. "With more teaching assistants, that's another set of eyes that would be in the classrooms and in the hallways."
CMS has 365 teacher vacancies for the 2025-26 school year, including 86 vacancies at the high school level, as of June 12. The district also slightly increased its student to teacher ratio in grades 10 through 12 this year. So, while that reduced vacancies by about 40 positions on paper, that didn't mean there were more teachers in school.
Meanwhile, the district currently has an average of 1,574 students for every one school psychologist. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends a ratio of 500 students to every one psychologist, and research indicates that school psychological services decrease as ratios of students to school psychologists increase.
Solutions
Fairley said the state has implemented several measures in recent years that have been effective, including developing threat assessment teams, promoting anonymous reporting and creating peer-to-peer mentorship programs.
"All of these things help to bring numbers down," she said. "I think we are more diligent to recognize the things that need to be done in order to create a safer school environment."
The North Carolina Task Force for Safer Schools launched a five-year state action plan in 2021 with the goal that "every school in North Carolina will be a safe school where all students can learn, all teachers can teach and all school staff can do their work without any concerns for their well-being."
In April, Gov. Josh Stein announced the creation of an advisory council on student safety and well-being, comprising educators, mental health professionals, legislators and law enforcement.
"North Carolina's children are our future, and it is crucial that they grow and learn in a safe environment that sets them on the right trajectory to thrive," Stein said in an April 7 news release.
CMS has also implemented some of its own safety measures in recent years.
"CMS police provides survival training for all CMS staff and employees to prepare for emergencies and partners with local jurisdictions to provide school resource officers for all middle schools, high schools and K-8 schools, as well as unarmed campus security associates," CMS Chief of Safety Mark McHugh told The Observer.
All of the district's middle and high schools have used body scanners during daily arrival and extracurriculars, with the first arriving in the 2021-22 school year.
CMS began using the Say Something anonymous reporting system in 2022, which allows students and families to submit anonymous tips about safety concerns. Canty said the system is useful, but he believes many students still aren't aware of it.
"I think it could be more heavily advertised," he said. "Even though it's anonymous, some people might not use it because they feel like it's snitching … but it's not snitching if you're trying to prevent something from becoming a dangerous or hazardous situation."
Fairley said, while it's impossible to control everything that happens, her goal at the Center for Safer Schools is to create an environment as conducive to learning as possible.
"Sometimes, depending on the area, depending on what's going on in the culture, depending on what's just going on in a community, you'll have an ebb and flow of things," she said. "But it is a team effort of the schools, the parents, the students and us working together to ensure that schools are safer."