Moose Jaw high school fight ends in controversy, anxiety for students

A fight between students at AE Peacock Collegiate in Moose Jaw on Tuesday has resulted in a tense environment this week, creating anxiety for some students.

A video of the incident has been circulating the school, which shows two students involved in a verbal fight before the vice-principal steps in to break it up. Students say there was a physical fight before the video was taken.

While there is controversy surrounding whether the vice-principal used the right tactics to break up the fight, students are feeling a divide.

Scout Panko is a senior at the school.

“I’d say it’s about three quarters and one quarter, where one quarter is thinking that there’s something deeper to what happened,” she said referencing the vice-principal. “I don’t think there’s anything else he really could have done.”

Student Kate Hansen said what people didn’t see in the video is another female teacher who attempted to stop the fight, but the students continued to yell and swear.

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“It’s really like been a big issue… it is really just dividing the students,” Hansen said.

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Julia Zinn is a student at Peacock school, she said it is very challenging to stay away from bullying.

“There is a lot of different cultures and there’s a lot of different kinds of people so it’s really hard for everything to just kind of stay intact and in control,” Zinn explained. “The last three years I have been here there has been a lot bullying.

“I’ve been bullied myself. Nothing ever really gets done about it.”

Moose Jaw police confirmed they responded to an altercation between two students Tuesday afternoon.

“The police are investigating the incident and with the full cooperation with the Prairie South School Division,” Jay-D Haughton, the communications manager with Moose Jaw Police said.

Global News reached out to the school district for comment on the issue but were told they weren’t available for comment.

President of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation Samantha Becotte said it’s situations like this that show why classroom complexity is an issue across the province.

“Teachers are really struggling,” Becotte said. “They’re trying to meet the needs of students but as the needs of students become more diverse and more significant and the supports that are available within schools to meet those needs continue to decrease it becomes more and more difficult.”

She believes one of the solutions to help prevent violence is reducing the size of classes and having more educational assistants and counsellors on site.