Charlottesville City Schools hearing concerns from CHS teachers and staff

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - There’s new leadership, but still a lot of questions about the situation at Charlottesville High School.

Violence in the hallways has school officials trying to determine what to do next at CHS.

Charlottesville High School’s faculty and staff spent Monday, November 20, expressing concerns to reset, renew, and revitalize safety procedures.

“Our teachers are having the first of many conversations about making sure their voices are heard, making sure that they’re getting the support they need,” Beth Cheuk with Charlottesville City Schools said.

These discussions are slated to continue tomorrow, and come after several fights and other issues caused CHS to close for several days.

So many teachers called out Friday, Nov. 17, that the high school cancelled classes that day.

“There’s teachers at conferences, there are some teachers who are out for maybe for a long-time leave because of a different health illness, or some people who were calling in sick, like, legitimately sick,” Cheuk said.

Cheuk says it is normal to have staffing issues on Fridays, but this time it was magnified by an incident that left many concerned about safety.

“There was one situation where a student led in an older family member in the side door,” Cheuk said. “I have heard that there may have been a teacher hurt, but I did not believe any actual report was ever filed. So I don’t know if that person considers themselves to be hurt or not.”

The school division says the physical and emotional safety of students, faculty, and staff remains top priority.

“I think they are eagerly exploring the idea of weapons detectors at the doors, things like that, that may help just lower the anxiety about people when they come into our schools. But I want to remind everyone that national security experts agree that the top investment we can make in security and safety is relationships. And so I think that’s really a lot of the work that teachers are doing today,” Cheuk said.

NBC29 asked if Charlottesville City Schools was thinking about bringing back school resource officers (SROs), which it says not at this time.

“I do think it’s important to remember that fights in schools across the country are up in the years since the pandemic, and that is true at schools that have SROs on their campuses,” Cheuk said.

The School Division says it is considering implementing weapons detectors.

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