EP2 Of Sit Down With Marlise(FT. Mr. Fidalgo)

Mr. Fidalgo has worked for BPS for 11 years. He believes school violence has increased due to social media and easy access to weapons. Verbal aggression is the most common type of violence. Consequences for violence depend on the offense. Miscommunication plays a big role in conflicts. The school has implemented restorative practices to improve communication. They have a strong sense of community and try to address frustrations. Incidents sometimes spill out into the community. The school goes into safe mode when students are in danger. Metal detectors help prevent dangerous items from entering the school. Families voted for their implementation. The school should prioritize listening to students' concerns to prevent incidents. and today I'm here with Mr. Fidalgo. And we're going to talk a little bit about school violence and also a little bit about community violence. So, how long have you worked for BPS? I've been working for BPS for 11 years. I've actually been here for 11 years. For 11 years, I started my, I guess, educational career here. My first year at the Dearborn was as a City Year Corps member, which is a medical program where I did a service year here at the school, kind of supporting kids around attendance, behaviors, and coursework. And then I got onto staff and I've been here since. Currently, my role is Director of Operations, but I do still deal with discipline in a day-to-day capacity. Do you think that, in your opinion, has school violence got worse or got better? In general, and I'll get into Dearborn specifics, but I think violence has gone up a bit based off of access. I think kids today have a lot more access to social media, weapons, etc., which has definitely caused some incidents outside of school, but also in school, you know, with access to social media, you know, a lot of kids, it's very easy for kids to call other kids out, kids are always posting on social media, and that's definitely caught, you know, kids are going to see each other the next day in the building, so it's definitely caused a lot of issues. You have witnessed, I would say, since you've been working in this school for like 11 years, what would you say is the most common type of violence, like verbal, bullying, physical? We definitely see a little bit of all of that, but I would say verbal. I think, you know, again, with social media and just reading words and tone, not being attached to that, there's definitely a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunication, so a lot of times what we see when kids are approaching one another, it's definitely like aggressive, the aggressive behavior is verbal. So whether that's swearing or, yeah. How would you say, like, y'all handle with the violence? Is there punishment or, like, is there any other way? It's based by each incident, there's not, like, one consequence that covers it all. If it's a bullying situation, we deal with that differently from whether it was a fight, a mutual fight, or another student assaulted another student. You know, it's definitely dependent on the offense, and that's how we determine the consequence. What would you say, like, is the main cause of violence? Like, why are the kids, like, choosing violence? You know, I wish we had an answer to that, because then we wouldn't have to be worrying about all the violence that we see. But I think something that helps or could help is just, you know, having conversations. You know, something that we've implemented in the school is restorative circles or restorative practices where students come together and learn how to communicate, but also listen, right? So, just exposing our students to what appropriate conversations look like, how to approach students, if there's some miscommunication happening, humiliations. Repeat your question, I just want to make sure I'm answering it. So, like, what's the main cause of violence? Yeah, again, like, I don't know, but I think in order to somewhat address it, we just need to educate the youth and provide outlets and strategies to avoid any negative interaction. So, to you, like, miscommunication plays a big part? Absolutely. A lot of times when I sit students down and we try to get to the root of it all, you know, it's, you know, have you played the game telephone before? So, we're like, you get a circle of people and someone starts off with one thing, and by the end of it, it's totally different. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of times, you know, it's like a he said, she said, this person told that person something different, and then it got back to your ears, and now it's a problem, right? So, when I sit kids down, what ends up coming out of it is that, oh, well, I actually don't have a problem with people, this is what I heard, and it's like, oh, I didn't hear it from you, I heard it from somewhere else. So, yeah, miscommunication definitely plays a part. And do you feel like y'all have it under control? Yeah, I think we've created a space where, and again, it doesn't solve everything, and sometimes things just happen, but we've definitely created a space in the school where, you know, I'd say we have a strong sense of community, and we've helped students figure out how to appropriately communicate some of those frustrations that they have, based off of things that they've heard. Do you feel like the incidents that happen in school, people, like the students, keep goals with it until it gets to the community? It's definitely happened. I think most of our, like, fights or, you know, physical altercations or verbal altercations tend to happen down the street because of, you know, the safe space we've created in the building. But, yeah, you know, there's a lot of unknowns or things we can't control, you know, when kids are out of school, and we can't be as vigilant as we want to. So I've definitely seen kind of that violence spill out into the community. But, like, you said, like, you have seen school-based violence that move out to the community, but, like, was there any time, maybe you have any example of, like, when community-based violence, like, threatened, like, the school's safety, like, maybe caused it to, like, shut down? Well, as a school, there's this thing called safe mode, and it's when we go into safe mode. And what that looks like is in the instance that our students are in danger based off of violence that's happening in the community, we kind of go into a, I don't want to say lockdown. We go into safe mode where all our exterior doors are locked, students are in the classroom, doors locked, shades down to ensure that they're safe in the building. We've gone into it a couple of times at school, more for, like, medical emergencies. But outside, we definitely have, with, like, time here, I can't speak to, like, a specific incident that's happened while we've been in this building. I know when we were at the Burke, there was a shooting that happened right outside the building where I believe a student, not one of our students, one of the Burke students and a bystander got shot. And we immediately went into lockdown or safe mode to make sure that nobody came into the building or left. That wouldn't put them in danger. If I'm not wrong, I think that it was at the Burger King parking lot. It was at Son's Pizza. So when you walk out on the Washington side to the right, there's, like, a pizza shop that I used to go to all the time. But, yeah, right out there. Like, I know that here we have, like, the metal detector. Do you think that it helps students feel more safe while they're in school? Absolutely. And I, you know, I want to make it clear that the metal detectors weren't put into place to catch students. It was definitely, we definitely started using it to be more preventative and proactive. You know, once the kids saw that we had metal detectors, you know, you would like that first or second day they'd walk by, you know, that kind of told us that they were bringing things into the building that weren't safe, you know, for students or even for themselves. So, you know, metal detectors were definitely put into place to, you know, make sure that we're keeping our students as safe as we can. Because when you leave home, families expect you to come to school, not worry about any of that and just get an education. You know, last year we had an incident where a student actually came into the building with a gun. Right. And if we had a metal detector that would have never gotten into the building. So, you know, based off of that, but also like making sure that we're being cautious around. And, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Just making sure that we're keeping our eyes open in order to keep you safe. And something that I've seen that we've, you know, through metal detectors, we're not seeing weapons. A lot of what we're seeing now are vapes. Right. And that is such a health hazard or it's not safe for your health. And kids are going to the hospital, not from the airborne, but it's been causing a lot of medical issues. And, you know, we definitely want to make sure that kids to be mindful and educated around how that can really harm them. I've heard that the metal detector, it was a thing that the families wanted. Now, I'm just trying to make sure that families played a part in it. Yeah, we actually had to go through a voting process. And part of that process included the parent council and the metal detectors or the implementation of metal detectors was proposed to families. And they voted on having metal detectors. And after we went through them at the school, we moved forward and made a request. What do you think is like any other things that counselors, teachers and the school in general, what can they do to help students feel more safe in school? I think as staff and adults in the building, we just have to be willing to listen. I know a lot of times, for example, you know, it took you a couple of times to come get to me. And I think we just kind of need to prioritize a little more listening or allotting time to sit down and listen to what you, you know, other students have to say, any concerns. Because I'm going to, you know, to be honest, a lot of times I'm able to prevent things from happening because students have come to me and told me that, hey, so-and-so has this or, hey, I heard this is going to happen. And that's based off of like relationship and trust between students and adults. So I think as long as adults continue to build those relationships with students, that would definitely help around, you know, making sure that everyone is safe. So that was it for today. And I wanted to thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time of your busy schedule to come here and sit down with me to have this conversation. And I also appreciate you for keeping us safe. I appreciate you. Thank you.