Town hall held to discuss school fights, shooting at Carver Middle

ORLANDO, Fla. - A town hall was held at an Orlando middle school on Monday evening to discuss the violence at the school.

Parents and officials met in a town hall at Carver Middle School to discuss the problems they see regarding school violence and potential solutions. 

This town hall comes after there was a shooting after dismissal on December 2. Orlando Police say two teens from a nearby private school, fired the shots. They say it was over a dispute with a student at Carver Middle.

"These kids just need some help, they need some attention, they need something to do, and they need something to stop this gang stuff that is taking control of these kids and these schools," said a parent in the community.

"It’s been fight after, fight, shooting, kids bringing guns to school, drugs, you need to get a grip on this," another parent added.

Parents say there has been a lot of fighting on and off-campus too.

"I’m not going to sugarcoat it, we have a problem, we have a problem," said Commissioner Regina Hill. "It’s going to be work, but we got to get some of these guns off the street."

Several ideas were brought up like having more parent involvement or parent volunteer programs, doing something to control gang activity, adding more after-school activities, and hiring student safety coaches, instead of more school resource officers.

"You don’t want an officer on every corner, in every classroom, that’s not the world we want to live in," said Orange County Sheriff John Mina at the town hall. "So that’s where we need help from all of you we need help from our kids."

City Commissioner Bakari Burns said this was just the beginning.

"You can hear that there’s a lot of passion as well as frustration, with the parents, so I think there were some good discussions, some discussions we need to continue, but we also need to focus on solutions," said Burns.

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