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First Posted: 11/14/2013 Fighting was the number one problem for Luzerne County schools in the latest Pennsylvania Safe Schools report, which include a list of 51 types of incidents districts and schools are supposed to tally each year.
In Luzerne County&#8217;s 11 districts, there were a total of 123 fights, with Hazleton Area leading the field at 29 fights, a predictable outcome considering it&#8217;s the county&#8217;s largest district by enrollment at 10,429. But Greater Nanticoke Area came in second with 28 reported fights, despite being number eight in enrollment at 2,180.
Wilkes-Barre Area, the second largest district, reported only four fights, while Northwest Area, the smallest district, reported 15. Dallas and Wyoming Area reported no fights.
Northwest Area achieved some fight notoriety in 2010 when students posted YouTube videos of what some officials dubbed a &#8220;Fight Club,&#8221; a gathering of people for the express purpose of watching as two members pound each other with bare fists, as depicted in a 1999 movie by the same title. Some students pointed out that movie was released when those involved in the videos were too young to go see it. At least 33 students were eventually cited with disorderly conduct as a result of the videos.
There is an annual caveat that remains despite several attempts by the state to mitigate the problem: The data is self-reported, and districts &#8212; and even schools within the same district &#8212; may view incidents differently. One administrator&#8217;s fight may be another&#8217;s harassment.
That said, here are some district-level highlights from the data for the 2012-13 school year posted on the state Department of Education website:
&#8226; Disorderly conduct came in number two countywide, with 84 incidents reported. The overwhelming majority of those were in Wilkes-Barre Area: 53.
&#8226; Tobacco possession, which has topped the charts in the past, ranked third highest with 72 reports. More than one third of those &#8212; 25 &#8212; were reported at Wyoming Valley West.
&#8226; There were 32 reported thefts, 10 in Hazleton Area with none reported in Greater Nanticoke Area and Hanover Area. The remaining districts reported one to four thefts.
&#8226; Bullying, which became a hot topic last year following a string of teen suicides, was the seventh most frequent incident, with 29 cases countywide. Hazleton Area reported the most bullying with 11 cases. Yet despite widespread contention that bullying contributed to at least some of the suicides, it continues to be largely absent from the data, with five of 11 districts reporting zero cases: Crestwood, Greater Nanticoke Area, Hanover Area, Wilkes-Barre Area and Wyoming Area.
&#8226; There were no reports of handguns or rifles, but seven districts reported a total of 19 incidents with knives, and three districts &#8212; Hazleton Area, Wilkes-Barre Area and Wyoming Valley West &#8212; reported one case each of possession of a BB/pellet gun.
Countywide, the 11 districts reported 550 incidents involving 584 offenders. With total enrollment listed in the report as 40,917, that means about 1.4 percent of Luzerne County school district students ended up offenders.
But the rate varied widely among the 11 districts, with the highest rate of offenders in the smallest district: Northwest Area had 28 offenders with an enrollment of 1,160, or 2.41 percent. Dallas had the lowest rate, with 14 offenders out of 2,704 students, or 0.52 percent.

Fighting tops list of infractions in Luzerne County schools