By CHRISTOPHER LENOIS

LAPLACE – Officials from the St. John the Baptist Parish School Board and the sheriff’s office are still working through the details of a recent spate of fights between students of Glade School and Leon Godchaux Junior High that led to 16 arrests.

Ann LaBorde, the St. John School Board Director of Personnel, characterized the nature of the brawls as stemming from issues involving rival gangs of kids in the Reserve and LaPlace communities, with the schools serving as a convenient battleground.

“They come do this at the schools because of the safety of the campus. They know someone’s going to break up the fight if it’s on school grounds,” LaBorde said, “They want to fight but they don’t want to get hurt.”

Superintendent Michael Coburn was quick to dismiss the notion that the students were gangs in any kind of organized sense, but he did say that family was a contributing factor to the size of the conflict.

“You’ve got family stuff, cousins defending cousins,” said Coburn.

Sheriff Wayne L. Jones agreed that with having the resource officers at the schools, the response time for breaking up the fights was significantly increased, and said there have been no reports of incidents between teen-agers off of school grounds.

“I’m not sure if there’s a substantial reason for them to fight other than they come from different sections of the parish,” said Jones. “Juveniles want to portray themselves as gangs. But it’s just kids and foolishness.”

One thing all seem to agree upon is that the school’s themselves are the victims of their own policies that may not be doing enough to deter altercations.

Coburn instituted the “no-blink” policy last October, which changed the expulsion time for students from 45 days to the remainder of the school year. Even though fighting students over the age of 12 are now officially charged with Disturbing the Peace, both Jones and Coburn acknowledged that if these same fights happened on the city streets, there would be greater criminal repercussions for the offending parties.

“We need to get with the judges and make it harsher. These fights are serious and someone could get seriously hurt,” said Coburn.

Coburn said he’s seen “three or four” recommendations for expulsion so far, but each case needs to go through a hearing process with a hearing officer. Expelled students finish the school year at the Redirection Center, and then re-enter the school system the next year.

“Discipline doesn’t carry over to the next school year,” said Coburn.

LaBorde said the number of expulsions could put a heavy burden on the redirection center. Possibly requiring class re-assignments or the addition of new teachers.

In the meantime, additional resource officers are stationed at each school. Sheriff dept. spokesperson Capt. Mike Tregre said this will continue for the foreseeable future.

“We are going to monitor the situation and see how it progresses. Hopefully it will die down,” said Tregre.

Tregre reported that more students had been arrested for fighting at Godchaux Junior High yesterday morning at 8:07 a.m, though it was not related to last week’s fights with Glade School students.

LaBorde praised the assistance of Sheriff Jones and his department, but Coburn said he’s not comfortable with more resource officers as a solution.

“I’m from the ‘old school.’ I don’t think police officers are necessary at school,” said Coburn. “The teachers and the principals should be prepared to handle these situations.”