DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - A number of fights at Stephen Decatur Middle School has parents worried.
Many of the fights required a call for back up from the Decatur Police Department.
WAND News acquired the information through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Regional Dispatch Center. Statistics showed how many times a fight got out of hand and help was needed.
According to the data, from Aug. 14 to Sept. 18, police were called 33 times to Stephen Decatur. This shows the number of times DPD had to break up or investigate a fight. The school has two resource officers.
WAND News looked at the number of times the high schools had calls to police for fights. Police came to MacArthur twice while Eisenhower had three calls.
Parents have expressed to WAND News they believe school merging is the catalyst. Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Stephen Decatur Middle School merged in 2019. In 2018, the student population was 347. In 2019, the population jumped to 824.
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Fred Bouchard, said the school district needs to talk about how it's addressing the issue.
"It is clear there are some things we need to apply here," Dr. Bouchard said.
WAND News then brought up the subject of school merging to Dr. Bouchard. The assistant superintendent said the school district's statistics show "there were, if not more issues than there were" compared to when schools didn't merge. Lisa Garner-Smith, who spoke out to school board members, doesn't agree.
"I want them to admit they made a mistake by combining those two schools together and then I want them to fix it," Garner-Smith said.
Dr. Bouchard believes there is a solution to keeping a safe environment for students. Part of it is getting more adults involved in areas of the campus where violence occurs.
WAND News sent a FOIA to the Decatur Public School District asking for all incident reports for fights in 2018 and 2019. However, the district requested an extension to get the information. The extension is for an additional five business days.
