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In Focus: Decline in volunteers has Barletta concerned

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Night at the races at Holy Child Faith

Reports of fighting in Luzerne County public schools jumped by 50 percent in the latest state School Safety Reports, from 105 incidents in 2013-14 to 155 in 2014-15. The spike reverses a four-year trend that saw annual declines.Greater Nanticoke Area High School accounted for more than half the total increase, with fighting offenses soaring from nine in 2013-14 to 35 last school year. Superintendent Ronald Grevera attributed the steep increase to changes at the school.&#8220;We had a different principal there the year before,&#8221; Grevera said. &#8220;And last year we did crack down on fighting. We&#8217;re not tolerating it; we&#8217;re filing reports with police.&#8221; The 2014-15 school year also marked the first time a police officer was assigned to the high school building for a full school year.Grevera predicted the number of fights will decrease dramatically now that students know the district has grown stricter. &#8220;I do expect it to drop this year,&#8221; he said.Tobacco offenses &#8212; possession, use or sale &#8212; saw a similar increase, from 64 reported cases in 2013-14 to 109 last year county-wide. The number is still well below the high of 341 in 2010-11.The annual reports come with a perennial caveat: The numbers are provided by the districts to the state, and while the state has made various efforts to improve accuracy and consistency among schools, deciding what constitutes an offense &#8212; and what kind of offense it is &#8212; ultimately rests with district and school officials. One person&#8217;s disorderly conduct could be another&#8217;s fight.That said, here are some highlights from the latest School Safety Reports.&#8226; Disorderly conduct was the second most frequent offense in the county, with 150 incidents &#8212; nearly triple the 63 reported the previous year and the highest number in the last five years, topping 139 reported in 2010-11.&#8226; Tobacco offenses were third this year, making it to the top three offenses five years running. It was the number one offense in 2011-12 with 214 incidents.&#8226; &#8220;Other harassment/intimidation&#8221; ranked fourth with 74 offenses, consistently in the top five since 2010-11. Possession or use of a controlled substance ranked fifth with 59 offenses, returning to the top five offenses after being displaced the previous year by theft.&#8226; At the school level, along with Greater Nanticoke Area High School, three buildings reported fighting incidents in double digits: Wyoming Valley West Middle School with 18, Lake Lehman Junior/Senior High School with 11, and Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center with 10.&#8226; Wilkes-Barre Area&#8217;s Solomon Plains Junior High School not only reported the highest number of disorderly conduct cases, it was by far the school&#8217;s biggest single offense among all incidents: 20 of 22.&#8226; While Wilkes-Barre Area&#8217;s Meyers High School hit the news recently when Assistant Principal Patrick Peters was injured after breaking up a fight between two female students, the school&#8217;s numbers were not particularly high. Meyers reported 14 offenses in 2014-15 &#8212; well below Hazleton Area High School&#8217;s county-high of 57. And of those 14 at Meyers, only two were for fighting.&#8226; While high schools account for the majority of offenses reported &#8212; 465 of 733, or 60 percent &#8212; they don&#8217;t fill out the top 10. Wyoming Valley West Middle School had the second highest total offenses with 52, and Hazleton Area&#8217;s West Hazleton Elementary/Middle School came in ninth with 34.&#8226; The three schools with the highest truancy rates in the county were all in Wyoming Valley West: State Street Elementary with a rate of 31.6 percent, the Middle School at 31.1 percent and the High School at 29.5 percent.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Mark Guydishmguydish@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</shirttailMeta></div>

Reports of fighting in Wyoming Valley public schools up 50 percent