Century High School parents frustrated with school leadership
(ABC 6 News) – A video surfaced of Wednesday’s fight at Century High School that resulted in one student arrested and facing felony charges. Now parents are left with questions and the school district has yet to provide answers.
Parents we spoke with are outraged. Some so worried that they wouldn’t speak on camera out of fear for their child’s safety. Despite a brief statement yesterday, some parents demanded more from school leadership.
In the video appears to show a fight between students, and staff members trying to break it up. One student later reveals a knife, and that student then appears to make stabbing-like motions at another student.
“My daughter showed it to me crying about it. It seemed so much more serious than the email I had gotten,” said Hillary Seltun who has two kids who attend Century.
In an email to parents Century Principal Monde Schwartz said quote “Thankfully the knife did not cause an injury and was secured by a staff member.”
—RELATED: UPDATE: Century High School student facing charges after threatening students with knife —
Rochester police did report that one student suffered minor injuries during the fight, but did not disclose what exactly those injuries were.
Seltun feels there has been a lack of transparency and she says parents have been lied to about the severity of the fight.
“And when I watch the video, you clearly see a pretty serious incident happening,” said Seltun.
ABC 6 News reached out to Rochester Public Schools for an interview about student safety, but the requests went unanswered.
Parents like Seltun are demanding the school district do more.
“It’s interesting to me that the superintendent hasn’t said a lot of about this. We just had a referendum that wasn’t passed discussing his disappointment about that almost immediately when those results came out, but this happened in a school that he’s in charge of and we’ve gotten radio silence,” said Seltun.
Seltun saw the video Thursday night and on Friday emotions ran high when she sent her children back to school.
“Both of my children said to me ‘I’m concerned there’s other weapons at school.'”‘ My daughter said ‘I don’t know how I stay safe,'” said Seltun.
The thought that kept circling through Seltun’s head, what if it was a different weapon?
“It’s part of why I’m so frustrated with the school. It feels like this is a major issue across the country. It’s on a lot of parents’ minds. Why minimize it? Why not just accept what it is. Take accountability and let us know what you are going to do to keep us safe moving forward,” said Seltun.
In many conversations with parents over the last two days, something that continued to be brought up are issues involving police at the school that parents say they never got answers for, and in some cases, they were not even notified about.
And again, RPS denied requests for an interview.