Southern Principal Talks Aggression, Social Media with Parents

Southern High Principal Marc Procaccini met with parents during a special meeting Saturday morning and explained that despite last week’s weapons incident, violent and aggressive behavior at the school is down by 50 percent compared to last year.

Last Tuesday, police arrested a 17-year-old student who allegedly brought a pellet gun and knife to Southern High. No threats were made and the incident was resolved quickly, said police spokesman Justin Mulcahy.

More than 50 parents and students attended the gathering from 9-11 a.m. at Southern High, and heard Procaccini break down progress towards decreasing aggressive behavior, as well as his concerns about social media in school.

“Our discipline incidents are down at this point from last year by 66.7 percent and acts of violence and aggressive behavior are down by 50 percent compared to last year,” Procaccini said.

The first-year principal told parents that preventative strategies and communication with parents is key to preventing violent and aggressive behavior. However, one aspect that’s extremely hard to control is social media interactions between students, he added.

Similar to how the federal government outlawed downloading and pirating music, Procaccini expressed his desire to see similar legislation when it comes to the use of social media. He cited the 1969 Supreme Court Decision of Tinker v. Des Moines that set a precedent that speech causing “substantial disruption” of education activities is not protected speech, said Procaccini.

“The inappropriate use of social media either through Twitter, Facebook, off school grounds in the evenings and on the weekends contribute and often serve as the root cause for the manifestation of violent, aggressive behavior in the school building. Not just at Southern … but across the U.S. and many other countries,” he said. “More specific legislation and the execution of that legislation must occur in order to significantly minimize this epidemic in society.”

While Procaccini was clear that he takes weapons and violent incidents very seriously, he was happy to say that Southern is at the low-end of the spectrum in comparison to other county schools.

“The overwhelming majority of attendees and those who could not attend but sent email correspondence indicated that [the weapons incident] does not reflect and is not indicative of the positive climate of the school,” he said.