On January 3, 2024, the NJ Education Report published an article titled “The Twenty Most Violent Schools in New Jersey” by Laura Waters. Many Highland Park residents were shocked to read that Highland Park Middle School ranked second in the state with a rate of 18.9 violent incidents per 100 students. One member of the community posted the link to this article on the Highland Park Facebook page, and it spread quickly to parents, students, and faculty members.
Freshmen at Highland Park High School expressed mixed feelings regarding the safety of the middle school. A ninth grader commented, “It makes sense, you know, there were some scary moments.” Another said, “I once saw someone get arrested in the hallway.” Others described more positive experiences, with one student saying, “I felt safe, for the most part. There are tons of other schools in New Jersey that have got to be more violent than ours.”
Middle school principal Ms. Brady claims she did not receive any worried calls from parents or students. When she first learned of the NJ Report article, she was surprised to see the school on that list. She “thought it was silly” and “wanted more information,” and “knew [the results] would be skewed because we have a small school” but thought the report was inaccurate.
After digging deeper, Ms. Brady found an error in the educational report that the article extrapolated their data from. “What was reported was the number of suspensions, but we were supposed to report acts of violence,” she affirmed. Ms. Brady attested that due to this missight, suspensions due to non-violent acts, such as refusal to attend detention, inflated records of violent incidents compared to reality. Additionally, she mentioned that drug use incidents are considered violent acts, not only physical altercations. Ms. Brady says, “This article gave us an opportunity to realize our mistake and, although we can’t fix the past, we can change our reporting for the future.”
When speaking further about the rates of misbehavior in the middle school, Ms. Brady shared that the number of incidents increased after the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Center of Educational Statistics states that as of 2022, 84% of public schools agreed that students’ behavioral development was negatively impacted after the quarantine. The increase in behavioral issues in HPMS may represent a symptom of a more widespread issue stemming from the isolation and collective trauma of the quarantine period. Ms. Brady stated that “the biggest increase was weed,” which seems to be a common issue in the high school as well.
There are undeniable instances of misbehavior and violence in Highland Park Middle School, but one alumnus argues, “I still really did like my time in middle school; I don’t think I would have been happier anywhere else.” Ms. Brady assures students, “The staff work to make the middle school a safe, loving, inclusive environment. That being said, If someone wants to find trouble, they will. I encourage rising middle schoolers to commit to excelling academically, to get involved in extracurricular activities, and to seek out positive influences and experiences as opposed to negative ones.”