MONTICELLO – A melee in
front of Monticello High School on Friday, April 20 resulted in injuries
to two staff members.
Schools Superintendent Tammy Mangus did not report the incident to the
community until Thursday, April 26.
Staff members interceded to deescalate the situation and that is when
they were injured, one with an ankle injury.
Mangus said there are “troubling events occurring outside of the
regular school day and these situations can bubble over.” She said
those “issues and others have been impacting this community for
quite some time, and whenever you have an overture of emotion in any given
community, problems arise and we have to respond.”
That, she said, means in the Monticello School District that students’
social and emotional health are addressed as part of the district’s
curriculum from kindergarten through high school.
“It means providing free lunch and breakfast for all of our students,
so that kids who haven’t eaten a hot meal since Friday’s lunch
can concentrate on their school work, instead of their hunger, on Monday
morning,” Mangus said. “It means offering at-risk students
opportunities to explore new interests and experiences through extended-day
programs such as the My Brother’s Keeper program, and our enhanced
elementary after-school programs that will launch in the fall.”
