Monroe County Schools and Community Safety Consortium addresses uptick in violence

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Recently there has been a lot of concern surrounding security at area schools. Thursday the Monroe County Schools and Community Safety Consortium addressed some of those concerns and what’s being done to combat the violence.

If you’ve watched the news recently, you know there’s been no shortage of violence in or around our schools.

"A lot of our issues with our fights occurred on social media. You know, they’ve been brewing for 18 months and then all of a sudden for the first time they see this person they’re having a beef with on social media. And we have we had a fight on video where there were no words exchanged," said Steve Chatterton the Director of Security at Greece Central School District.

It’s not just kids causing the disruption. We’ve shown you countless school board meetings that have gotten a little too heated.

"You got the anti-vaccination people, the masking people, critical race theory people, that was a lot of activists out there right now," Chief James VanBrederode of the Gates Police Department.

Those are just some of the many issues the 70 plus members of the consortium are addressing.

"We’re on email immediately sharing information with each other. This is what happened at the school board meeting. And that’s what makes this consortium great is that we talk almost every day over email about what’s going on, what happened in Gates, what happened in Hilton," VanBrederode said.

They say schools and police departments, working together, can help curb the violence.

"I got a feud going on between kids in a certain neighborhood. Guess where we all meet at 7 a.m. We all meet at school," VanBrederode said.

The key to their success is everyone sharing information. Because they say what happens in the community, is going to end up in the classroom.

"We’ll get the heads up from the Greece Police Department about a fight that happened at 10 o’clock in the night. And we’re pulling kids off buses in the morning and getting them and mediating that to make sure that fights aren’t happening," Chatterton said.