Riot breaks out at West Bladen High School

The reason for the problems at the school is a total lack of leadership on Ms Beatty's part. You can go to a game and know that her and her staff have to hear the same foul mouth talk that the people there with their young children hear and NOTHING is done. I can't believe that Dinkins allows her to run the school the way that he does but then again maybe that is why he is packing his bags now. I just hope that the next super has the guts to stand up to her and her klan and stop them from allowing the school to be run by the gangs like it is now.

I have read these comments and there is quite a bit of blame ~ but what is that going to accomplish??? Not a thing. First, there is going to be a child everywhere that likes to push the limits. No matter where you go. But when the situation gets like it is here, then we ALL NEED TO WORK TOGETHER and find a solution not sit back and play the blame game behind a computer screen and just "talk" about what is wrong. Everyone ~ me included, needs to get together and work out a way to fix this. If we all work together, we CAN do this. We need to get a meeting of parents and officials, and school members to work on a way to control this situation and keep it from happening again. I am for the paddle. If my child were to be disrespectful or out of line, he deserves the punishment. We (as paretns and teachers) need to be able to have the punishment back in schools. It may not solve everything, but it will help. When they took parents and teachers punishment rights away, they tied our hands. Now they have a mess they cannot fix or take care of. Children need disipline (and I am not talking beat the child senseless - I am talking a good old fashioned spanking). Us from the older days made it through and guess what, we didnt have the trouble that is going on today either. I was scared to death to tell my dad if i had gotten in trouble. And that is how it should be. Children have lost respect for adults. We need to bring that back. Let's get everyone together and fix this. Our children deserve a good education and not be scared to go to school or have to have metal detectors and police to go in school. BTW ~ i do have to add ~ 10 days suspension is a joke for the situation that happened on Monday. That does not scare the kids at all and they are not going to learn from something like that. They need something that they are going to remember why they are in trouble and not want to even think about getting in trouble again. LETS GET TOGETHER AND WORK THIS OUT ~ if we get together ~ we can make new ways for the school to WORK. ~ A Concerned Parent

I notice a lot of pointing fingers its the parents, its the school officials and what not! First and foremost parents it is YOUR exclusive job to instill morals and values into your child's lives it is not the schools place to do that. It is the job that you take on as a parent when you choose to have a baby. Your child is an outward extension of yourself and reflects upon you! You must teach your children to respect their selves as well as to respect others. You can not expect the school or its officials to control your children if you can not, its not their job. It is their job to educate your child and other children. When your child interrupts a classroom, or starts a fight then YOUR child is taking way from others education. Parents are the primary care givers, the ones who teach their children from day one how to walk, talk, dress their selves ...they also teach their children right from wrong. If you want your child to behave and do the right thing then you must show them consequence for the wrong actions and praise for the right actions. Maybe taking away some of their toys like cell phones, IPods, Cars, Computers make them earn what they want what ever happen to honest hard work it truly teaches children the value of a dollar and hard work. If you want the school and officials to do more then how about lobbying for more rights for your school officials for them to be able to impose stricter discipline don't whine and complain parents about what your school officials are not doing because you hold the key to your child(rens) future and if it means so dang much to you quit sending nasty rude comments and get off your chair and computer and do something about it take your school back and take your children back. The key is in your hand, or if you'd rather the ball is in your court you want change, you want better then take charge and demand better! Your school officials can't do it on their you have to work together as a team and let these youth of today know that you both run the show not them! Spend sometime listening to your children, talking to them and letting them know what you will and will not tolerate from them let them know consequences do exist and they do apply to them. Better get it under control now because look at how they are these days imagine how your grandchildren will behave and what their school life will be like do you want worse for your grandchildren? To the children, you are America's future sadly you've grown up in a time where paddles, prayer, and the pledge has been removed from school. I think discipline is a big key that is missing. You haven't been taught to have pride in yourself because if you had been you would have never behaved the way you have you disrespected yourselves and your school! Have some pride in yourself you don't have to resort to fighting like a bunch of heathens. Also kids if you want other adults to respect you then you have to take some pride in the way you talk to others meaning you do have to watch your grammar and spelling. No one is going to take someone seriously when they are using words like Sed instead of said and wut instead of what. It's all in how you present yourself! If you want to be taken seriously then correspond in a manner in which others will be able to A. Follow what you are saying and B.Will take you more seriously! Seriously the way some of you write is painful for many of us who treasure and appreciate our education and our educators to read. As I said you are America's future one day it'll be you guys helping educate the children of tomorrow, it'll be you guys defending our country...and I don't want to have to worry about what kind of place this is going to be for the future of our country and children. Make your family proud learn from the mistakes made this past week at West Bladen never repeat that ever again, and do not make it worse. Let it go and understand we are all different people from different places, we each are unique and have different thoughts, opinions and beliefs and respect those and respect yourself! You don't want another Columbine or Virgina Tech type incident you all are young and have a lot to offer the world. You have many years ahead of you filled with lots of great experiences to be had. So please just take life by the hand and run with it your in high school these should be some of the best years of your lives you should be making memories that you can look back on and smile, surly all this fighting isn't really something that you can look back on and smile about. Respect your life and others around you. Respect your educators for they have been in your shoes before and they know life as a teen isn't always easy, treat them with respect and I'd be willing to bet that they will treat you the same way. Good luck and God Bless you each.

The way children behave these days! They have NO respect for their selves or others! I'm going to be perfectly blunt when I was in school our principal and our teachers could take a paddle to our behinds if we got out of line. Our parents could do the same without everybody and their mother getting involved some of these kids need some paddles in their lives and on their behinds and they wouldn't behave the way they do! Society has let children get away with everything and this folks is what you get! I'm not saying beat your children, I'm simply saying we knew that our teachers and our principal could punish us that way when we were coming up and you never saw this kind of crap going on when I was in school in Bladen County! Heck no! You had the occasional fight true but no riots, no gang activity we knew we had consequences for our actions kids these days think heck if mamma or daddy or anyone does anything we don't like we'll call CPS or DSS its a crock!

What happened to Cody? Why is he included in all of this riot stuff at West Bladen? Why did the fight or riot start? Just wanting some answers!

Personally, I think that if you are a "scared student" you are just a punk and you should be homeschooled, because every school that you will go to I guarantee you that there will be a fight. On bringing Deputy Shaw back, he never did ANYTHING to stop a fight. Holder was ALWAYS the one running into ANY fight and trying to break it up by spraying mase in the air first so everyone would move out the way. Shaw was ALWAYS in the office doing who knows what. The fights that broke out this past monday were simply JUST fights. We always have a few fights every year. The ONLY reason why we ended up on the news and people were arrested this time was because the Superintendents were here to talk to anyone about Cody's death. [(R.I.P) We love you.] We have had worse fights than this. Noticed I said "Fights" NOT "RIOT"! A RIOT is when everyone is fighting everyone. This was just a few fights which happened at DIFFERENT TIMES throughout ONE DAY. This was completely blew out of proportion and I am glad that I only have 9 weeks left of school before I graduate. That is all I have to say. =]

I am just so glad that I got the hell out of Bladen county because the adults and kids alike sound so ridiculously obnoxious and stupid that it's embarrassing.

I don't understand, if there were 40 students fighting on this day then "why" were there only 12 arrested?

I have read every comment on the situation with the riot that broke out at West Bladen on Monday. I am so upset that there are people that are actually commenting on how these "children" are typing their words in the posts. If you have any children of your own, you will notice that this is how they text using short abbrevations for words. Next, I want to also comment on the "thug" word and just say I am outraged at adults and their postings. We need to stop stero-typing our children. Ok, yes it was mostly african american youth involved but do it had to be labeled as "thug". The real label should be children crying out for attention because you have parents that are not concerned with who they are hanging around with are what goes on with their school work. I hold the school system accountable for some because I am a resident of Bladen county and I know that all they do is give supensions and then they are back at school. They need to implement rules where they weed out the bad ones and send them to alternative schools. Let's not as adults down the children for their "poor use of grammar" but act as adults and post more positive reactions to this situation please.

From the lack of writing skills I see in the post from students and some adults, stupidity seems to be the normal thing at this school. No wonder the jungle mindset is in play here. All of the ones fighting are nothing but a bunch of animals who belong in cages. Remove them so the normal people can get an education.

It hasn't always been like this at WBHS when I started we maybe had one or two fights a year. Now it has esculated to a "RIOT" which makes no sense. We as students should be able to attend school with out having to worry about who is going to fight next or wether we have gang violoence in our school or not. It doesn't matter what the fights are about or the color of the individuals skin that is fighting because it could be African American, Whites, Mexicans or any other race that is at WB. It just so happened that only one race was shown but it just as easily could have been one of the others. We go to school to get our education so therefore it is not a daycare. By the time you reach high school you should no right from wrong no matter who or how someone raised you. You are ultimatly responsible for your actions. And as for the safety at WBHS there is none! Teachers can only do so much to help the situation but when the students that they send to the office are sent back to class and tell there teachers that they knew nothing would be done about the situation it shows there how our school system is. When the teachers can't keep control thats when the deputies are suppose to step in to gain control over the situation. But that want happen with the two deputies we have right now. One sits in the front office and doesn't get up off his butt he is more concerned with the women that work in there than keeping us safe he also would rather sit back and watch the fight than do anything about it. The other carries his little can of mace around to protect him. He doesn't target the ones who are causing the problem and just spray them he sprays innocent students who are just trying to go to class. No one has respect for these so called deputies because the students know that either they will just be watched or the worse that could happen is being sprayed. The ONLY deputy that was out there that I felt safe with is DAVID SHAW!!! He was the only one that I saw going to break up fights without the use of mace. He used force to show he meant what he said but people had respect for him! He didn't care who you were or who he needed to please. He did his job well and was always there to help. Everytime I turned around I saw him in the halls doing his job. Not once did I see him "flirting" in the office unlike the one we have now. He had a good personality but when he meant business it was serious. I felt safe when he was there after he left I now feel like a sitting duck because the worse would be over with before they got there. So it would be nice if he did come back!!!! The whole point is WBHS is not safe and i'm glad i dont have much longer to deal with it! We should walk through metal detectors every morning to assure that there are no weapons and we should also be searched. Which I wouldn't have a problem with!! If it made the school more safe.

TO ME I THINK NO ONE SHOULD BE UP HERE POSTING COMMENTS ABOUT ANYTHING THEY DONT KNOW. NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH EXCEPT THE PEOPLE THAT WERE ACTUALLY FIHTING AND HALF OF THEM DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING.. IF U THAT ARE COMMENTING ON SUCH A VIOLENCE IS A REAL "CONCERNED PARENT" THEN I BELIEVE YOU SHOULD ACTUALLY GET OUT OF YOUR CHAIRS AND COMPUTERS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE VIOLENCE. DONT U THINK SO???? ALSO IF YOU ARE SUCH A "SCARED WB STUDENT" THEN YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE AT WB. THEREFORE GO TO ANOTHA SCHOOL BUT IT DONT MAKE NO DIFFERENCE... aNY SCHOOL YOU GO TO THERE IS STILL GOING TO VIOLENCE. WHY DONT EVERYONE UNDERSTAND THAT???? I MEAN AFTER ALL THAT HAS WENT ON IN WEST BLADEN IN ALL OF MY 4 YEARS THAT I HAVE BEEN HERE. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT ALL FOR NO OTHER SCHOOL. THATS REAL TALK RIGHT THERE.... EVERYONE IS JUST MAKIN A BIG DEAL OUT OF NOTHING. MOST OF THE "CONCERNED PARENT" IT WAS YOUR CHILDREN THAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE "HORRIBLE VIOLENCE". YOU ALL ARE GETTING ALL UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED ONE TIME AT WB. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SCHOOLS AND THEIR VIOLENCE???? YEA I DIDNT THINK SO NOBODY EVER HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE..... IF YOUR CONCERNED LIKE YOU SAY YOU ARE THEN GO TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION..... I BET NO ONE THOUGHT OF THAT!!!! IF YOU DID THERE WOULDNT BE SO MUCH "DRAMA" OR ANYMORE "RIOTS" AS THEY SAY!!!! I SAID WHAT I HAD TO SAY..... PEACE!!!!!!