CBS 6 is hearing from a mother who says her child was the victim of a recent hallway fight at Schenectady High School.
CBS 6 brought you an exclusive video of the altercation.
As we've been reporting, the district tells us physical altercations between two or more high school students have been cut in half compared to this time last school year.
Still, the mother we spoke with says last Tuesday's incident has had a serious impact on her daughter.
The district tells us it involved four students. You can see someone trying to break it up has their hair pulled, before an adult male arrives to try to stop it.
It's not just Schenectady that’s had to deal with these incidents.
Parents in other districts have sent us similar videos. In Hudson, they told us it was an "out of control" situation. Last year in Green Island, the high school went remote because of their spike in fights.
The mother, who doesn't want to be identified, says when this happened, her 14-year-old child, a freshman, was walking to class with two friends.
She says once the altercation started, her daughter tried to defend herself. She also says the students who "jumped" her daughter were not supposed to be in this hallway, which the mother says is for freshmen only.
Here's part of her message to administrators:
She ended up getting suspended for five days even though she was defending herself and was being jumped by the girls - the issue I have with the suspension is that we don't get told what the other girls' consequences were. We don't know how long they're out of school - we need a program where there are community people, in the community to assist the parents that need help with their children. That's the issue.
As we mentioned, the district previously told us there were 286 of these altercations at this point last school year, and there have been 143 so far this school year.
Principal Dennis Green in large part credits the drop to programs including a "Home and School Alliance" and a "Parent Empowerment Center."
The mother we spoke to has some criticisms of this, along with the district’s suspension process. We'll dive into that in a future report.
We brought her concerns to the district, but the interview was conducted after 5 p.m. on the date it originally aired, so we were only able to contact the school district for a response after business hours. CBS 6 will provide the district’s response when we receive it.
Crisis in the Classroom is a weekly segment in which CBS 6 investigates issues faced by educators, students, and families. Send any tips to our team by emailing or by calling (518) 288-6034.