ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – On Monday, Englewood School District Superintendent Wendy Rubin sat down with Denver7 to address the recent video that showed an Englewood Middle School student attacking another.
Rubin also addressed the rumored “fight club” social media page, that a concerned parent brought to Denver7’s attention.
The district has since increased security on-campus and is now focused on implementing tailored curriculum to stop the bad behavior.
Over the weekend, an EMS parent who has wished to remain anonymous, told Denver7 there are “fight club social media pages” with videos from fights at Englewood Middle School.
After the video of the attack went viral, that parent shared concerns that their child could be the next target.
“We do not believe that there is a fight club at Englewood Middle School,” Superintendent Rubin said. “We have nothing to indicate that there is a fight club at Englewood Middle School.”
Rubin said there has been reported “bad behavior” at EMS, but added there seems to be confusion about two very separate and serious issues.
She said there is no connection between the recorded attack and the "fight club" social media page that has since sparked concern from parents.
She explains the social media page. “Apparently, there was a channel on one of the social media platforms called ‘Englewood Fights,’” Rubin said.
She described the page as a platform where students would post videos of fights that happened over time and in different places. She said the page has since been taken down.
“That became representative of that idea of ‘fight club,’” Rubin added. “But it’s certainly not a fight club in terms of people staging fights and posting them to social media. Or people intentionally jumping one another to be filmed for the ‘fight club.’”
Rubin said there is also parent involvement that has escalated the situation.
“Unfortunately, we also have some adults in the community who have engaged in some of the behavior with the children,” she said.
Another EMS parent shared screenshots of threats that were allegedly made by another parent – threats made toward middle school students.
"Any adult who is acting that way towards children needs to be held accountable," Rubin said.
One of those screenshots showed someone holding a gun, threatening retaliation.
Rubin reacted, "If we have anybody threatening our students, and we’re made aware of it, we are going to involve the people we need to involve."
Englewood police were contacted.
Rubin described the next steps for the district in this investigation: "Our next steps with this particular situation is continue to go through all of the myriad of social media posts that are out there."
Now the district is tasked with not only finding ways to engage the student community, but the parent community as well in order to be healthy in their social media posts.
Rubin added, "It is frustrating to me when we stand side-by-side with an adult, and then they reach out or misrepresent, or perhaps engage to enflame a situation that we are trying to manage in a way that is healthy and productive — that is of benefit to our greater system. It is extremely frustrating."
