Are Houston high schools violent? (Future teacher asking here) (Friendswood: home, neighborhoods)

[xmod]

As a future high school teacher (or middle school teacher), are Houston public high schools violent?

Fights happen at every school but are stabbings, slashings, baseball bats (the really violent stuff) fairly common (aka not rare) at Houston public schools.

Because I'm reading a thread (on another website) about this kid that got slashed at a high school in Toronto and these other posters (high school age) are mentioning similar violent incidents at their high schools.

I don't read about this sort of HS violence on the Houston Chronicle website but maybe HS incidents don't get the attention of the Chronicle.

[TJS777]

Well maybe in the poor neighborhoods but not in one of the well-off subrubs like Clear Lake or Friendswood etc.

[houstoner]

Not in the well-off neighborhoods in the city either.

[EasilyAmused]

Originally Posted by houstoner

Not in the well-off neighborhoods in the city either.

[xmod]

Hmm..... not much new in these posts (wow, the more affluent neighborhoods are less violent....I never would have figured).

But the posts are telling in this respect....

Without much in the way of specific examples (like 'well, some kid at xyz high school was stabbed in a fight last year' or 'some kids at abc high school were suspended for beating a kid unconcious), it seems (at least initially) like Houston area HS are pretty safe relative to high schools in other US urban centers.

[EasilyAmused]

I pretty sure I remember that one High School in Cypress that was voted one of the 5 most violent ( or most troubled) in the US, or TX, a couple years back. I forget the name.

[tstone]

The day to day violence & 'socially unacceptable' behavior is going to be less in well off areas vs. the poor schools. Unfortunately the ghetto schools are usually the ones that need the teachers. Very tolerant ones indeed.

Our HS had issues with suicides back in the day, as did one in Katy recently. But at least when we killed ourselves, it wasn't in the cafeteria. Well, we didn't have kids on the current drugs of Corporate America, either.

Wasn't Columbine in a fairly well-off area?

[vamplita]

We certainly have gangs and gang members in our schools, but they aren't the behavior problems, believe it or not. The true gang members, other than possible dress-code violators, usually fly wayyyy under the radar behavior-wise. Coming from a teacher who has taught in the SE part of Houston, the majority of problems we had were from kids who were wanna-bes, or were trying to show how macho they were. Even still, majority of fights were fists only on campus. Very, very few otherwise. I can count them on about 2 fingers, actually.

Best of luck!

[zhugeliang1]

I don't know, but I interviewed at Jordan High School some years ago and got a job offer but had to turn it down because my father passed away right at the time I got the offer, had to go back home to take care of things. Then a few months later I turned to the Houston newspaper and saw a report of a couple Jordan High School girls got shot at while waiting for a bus outside their school.

[westres1]

no they are not violent and I worked in Aldine.