Across the state and nation, Ector County ISD Superintendent Scott Muri said there have been incidents of violence in schools and it has to be stopped.
Recently ECISD has had a spate of altercations with the arrest of an eighth-grader at Bowie Middle School for attacking his teacher, to a student bringing a gun to Permian High School and the stabbing of a student at Odessa High School. There also have been separate altercations at two fast-food restaurants, Burger King and Taco Villa.
Muri said the violence nationwide has been going on for the past several years and there has been an escalation of it among teenagers.
“Some people point the finger at the pandemic and certainly the isolation that was a part of the pandemic for our teenagers was difficult for them and many kids were traumatized by that,” Muri said in an interview Friday.
“We’re seeing some of those behaviors manifest themselves at schools, in communities and things like that. I think the proliferation of social media, and certainly during the pandemic that is on the rise; just things that kids see. There are bad adult behaviors and sometimes we can be very poor role models for our kids. They watch some of the poor behaviors (by) adults and they emulate those behaviors as children,” he added.
Muri said he doesn’t know if there is one root cause.
“I think there are many,” he said. “Our kids are a reflection of our society and our society is ailing right now. We see our kids suffering along with our society. We have a lot of work to do with our adolescents today.”
As a school system and society, Muri said “we have to get our hands around this and help our kids. Their behavior is screaming at us for help.”
“Kids just don’t behave badly for no reason at all. There is a reason, and many times it is our children begging for help; begging for support. They need people to love them; they need people to hold them accountable; they need people to care about them; they need people to certainly be their parents, to guide them through life and to help them through difficult decisions. They need people to cheer them on and celebrate them. Our kids need a variety of things,” Muri said.
Most children are fortunate because they have healthy adults in their lives, good parents, family members and friends that support them, he said.
“But we have some kids in our community, as well as communities across the country, that simply don’t have positive adult role models in their lives and that makes a difference. Kids desperately need that,” Muri said. “I think that as a community we owe it to our children to make sure that every child that lives in Ector County has a healthy role model, mentor, parent in their presence to help lead them and guide them through life.”
Muri observed that it’s tough being a teenager today.
“Our kids, again, their behaviors are telling us that they need some help and we owe it to them to give them that assistance,” he said.
He said children learn behaviors.
“I think that’s where accountability comes in, again, sometimes poor behavior is a child asking for accountability, for guidance, for rules, for structure, if you will; adults provide that. In a healthy home environment, there are rules and structures and there is a bed time; there is a curfew; there are norms … In a healthy classroom, the teacher provides clear rules and guidance and expectations and students must abide by those and … when they don’t there are consequences in place,” Muri said.
He added that human beings need those things as well.
The district embeds citizenship into the curriculum.
“… From a big picture perspective, it is how to behave in society. Good citizenship includes behaviors; how we treat other people; it’s also about self-respect; how you should treat yourself; how to have conversations with others; with adults; really the rules of society; the norms and expectations that we have as a society that’s a part of citizenship. We certainly teach that and we’ve taught that for many years in school,” Muri said.
The faith community, clubs, organizations, coaches and groups like the Boys and Girl Scouts do that.
Muri said those organizations help youngsters learn how to behave in society and be good citizens.
“That’s one of the reasons we encourage extracurricular activities because while we teach that in school, it is also a part of other organizations — whether school related or community related. Many clubs and teams and whether it’s athletics or academic organizations, arts organizations, church youth organizations, all of these groups that are positive help our kids know and understand how to cope and be successful in society. When kids are involved in these groups, again, positive groups, healthy groups good things happen,” Muri said.
“We also have unhealthy groups. There are gangs in our society. Those are very unhealthy for our kids. They teach them negative behaviors, inappropriate ways of behaving. So we need to make sure that our kids are not a part of those groups because … they inform the way that our kids behave, as well, so our kids need to be involved in positive organizations, groups, clubs and school is certainly a piece of that,” Muri added.
The pandemic is one of the root causes of what’s going on with children. It also impacts adults, but Muri said it did the most damage to children.
“We see it academically and we certainly see it socially. The pandemic is not the only root cause of this. There are other causes involved, but it certainly contributed,” Muri said.
There were rumors that the teacher attacked at Bowie was in critical condition, but Muri said Friday the teacher was fine, but it was a traumatic experience.
The argument was over a cell phone, according to a video of the incident. Muri said adults came to the scene to help the teacher. The student was charged with aggravated assault of a public servant, a first-degree felony, Chief Communications Officer Mike Adkins said in a text message.
On Wednesday, video of the eighth grader went viral. Those who saw the video on Facebook were appalled by the boy’s actions and many questioned why no other students came to the teacher’s aid.
“… As we talk about mental health trauma, we’ll certainly support that teacher in her recovery as she overcomes (it). You have physical injuries and then you have the mental stress that was caused when somebody’s attacked. It certainly creates a traumatic experience, so we’ll continue to support her,” he said.
Asked why other students didn’t intervene, Muri said he couldn’t explain it.
“… We would not encourage students to become involved in a violent situation. The reaction of a student would be to seek help. When you see something on your campus, whether it’s a violent action or something wrong, you want to get the help of an adult. That would the expectation of children would be to get help. We don’t want them to intervene in a situation like that. … It’s a dangerous situation,” Muri said.
He added that children have to be taught how to behave in situations like the one at Bowie.
“… When we see something … our responsibility to the individual is to get help. When we’re driving down the road if we see something happening on the side of the road and somebody is suffering, we need to call for help or stop and help. Our kids need to learn those behaviors as well. When you see another human being that is struggling or dealing with a difficult situation, our responsibility as a human is to help them in some way. But that’s not necessarily a natural behavior on the part of some kids. We have to teach our kids how to do that …,” Muri said.
He added that he thinks everyone should be concerned as adults living in this community that children are misbehaving because everyone lives here.
“This is our community. We want to make sure that our children know and are able to act appropriately in situations, so we should all be concerned absolutely,” Muri said.
He added that the situation is bigger than just ECISD.
“… A school system and our students are a reflection of our community and if we’re seeing violence in school and there is violence in our homes and in our community … we all have to understand the role that we play as individuals and a collective but the school system will certainly be a part of the solution. In fact, we were making some phone calls today. We want to be very thoughtful in how we do this, but absolutely we have to address it just as we have to address it as a state and a nation. We’re seeing too much of this in our society today and it has to end.,” Muri said.
