EDGEWOOD, Ky. — Kenton County School District officials claimed Monday that a social media-circulated recording of two young girls scuffling inside Turkey Foot Middle School, knocking one another to the floor and tearing at each other’s clothes, isn’t indicative of a typical day in the school’s halls.
Some parents — including the mother of one of the girls in the clip — said their children tell them it’s closer to the truth than than the district acknowledges.
“It should not be going on,” Brianna Dudukovich, whose 12-year-old daughter was in the recording, said. “It’s back-and-forth bullying, fighting, fighting, drama.”
She added her daughter had tried to avoid the fight and tell adults she was worried about the other girl. However, she claimed, a lack of teacher supervision allowed the two to continue on a collision course.
"There's not one teacher in the hallway, no staff in the hallway" in the clip, she said.
Another mother, who said she did not want to be publicly identified, said her daughter claimed to have seen five fights over the course of the previous week.
“I’ve considered pulling my daughter out for the last year and sending her to a private school until she gets to Dixie,” she said.
District spokeswoman Jess Dykes denied the claim. According to her, the real number of fights that week was just two, and even that represented a spike.
"There were two fights here last week — not more than two, just two," she said. "There are 1,100 students that go to Turkey Foot. It's springtime, so two is a lot in one week.”
She admitted the lack of staff supervision was a problem that day but explained: "The lines of communications were crossed with supervision that day because it was an alternative schedule with other things going on, and that’s unfortunate and has been addressed.”
Dykes said the school has received hardly any complaints from parents.
“It’s been a small number of calls — a very, very small number," said Dykes. "That’s why I said, have they called (Principal Holly) Spritzky? Because the volume of calls out of 1,100 students has been small.”
She also said Spritzky has been in constant communication with the students, staff and parents.
“We’re in education, so we care about all kids,” said Dykes. “We take all of these concerns very seriously, but we’re also a public school district, so this stuff is confidential. Parents get really frustrated when they can’t find out what the consequences were. That’s information we can’t give out.”
