KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Parents say they’re worried about fights happening near Ruskin High School. The fights happen almost daily and some say the school district needs to do more to prevent it.
The parents’ complaint is that kids from the middle school are bused to Ruskin High School. Once there, all students are then bused to their neighborhoods. Sometimes, kids aren’t getting on their buses and end up walking
away from school grounds and then the fighting starts.
There is a Youtube video of parent’s daughter fighting. Jameshia Dolman says it’s hard for her to watch the video. It shows her daughter on the ground being kicked in the head.
“It was just chaos,” Dolman said. “This isn’t just one day, this is every day. It’s gotten to the point where it’s just brawls.”
She says her daughter has been bullied at Hickman Middle School for some time. They’ve talked to school officials repeatedly.
“No one is solving the problem,” Dolman said. “It’s just getting worse in my opinion.”
Hickman Mills School District spokesperson John Baccala says the district is aware of the video. He says the district is warning students they can be suspended for such incidents that happen off of school grounds.
“I know neighbors are concerned,” Baccala said. “We’re always looking for ways to keep kids safe and keep things like this from happening but there isn’t a lot we can do when they get this far off school grounds.”
The district has some extra security from KCPD. Baccala says people may not like the busing arrangement, but the district needed to do things this way to save money.
“We have a half dozen officers here every day at Ruskin so we’re being very pro active to keep things like this from happening.” he said.
Dolman says she is so frustrated that she pulled her daughter out of school. Another parent with two kids at Ruskin agrees that the after school scene is too chaotic. Parents say the chaos isn’t worth saving money.
FOX 4 talked to several parents on Monday who say the system seems to be broken and they’d like to see it fixed.
