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YouTube videos ID girls fighting at Toki
Toki Middle School staff are continuing the disciplinary process after violent videos posted online helped staff identify some students involved in fights last week.
The videos showing girls fighting at Toki Middle School were removed Monday from the worldwide video upload site YouTube. Madison police responded to fights at Toki on Thursday and Friday, but school staff could not confirm whether these fights were the same as those posted online. Madison school district Superintendent Art Rainwater said staff were aware of the fights before the video was posted.
Rainwater said in an interview today that the school is handling the incidents through the discipline system and that the repercussions for the students involved have not yet been decided.
"We have very good safety plans in place in school that have stood the test of time. We handled this like any other fight. This one just happens to have been on TV," Rainwater said.
The incidents come one month after Toki added an additional security guard and a dean of students.
"Certainly, there's already been news coverage of the fact that we've added staff at Toki and involved parents in a heightened sense of school safety at Toki Middle School," said school district spokesman Ken Syke.
Rainwater also said that staff are trying to establish who filmed the video footage because school policy does not allow videotaping or photography without permission of the students involved.
Syke said that in each case, the fights were between two students and did not involve a larger number of students. He added that it appeared that both fights were between girls and that the Madison Police Department is conducting a separate investigation.
