Four students facing charges in Westlake High School beating of another student.

Four students are facing charges in the Westlake High School beating of another student, a junior, a spokesman for Fulton County schools said. This comes on the heels of another fight at Alpharetta High School, in Alpharetta, where a student hit another in the head with a racket, causing severe bleeding from his head. That case is still pending before a judge to determine if the students should be allowed to return to school.

The 16 year old Westlake student, who underwent surgery at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, reportedly suffered a broken nose and jaw. The students involved in the fight — three freshmen and one sophomore — have been suspended and will be prosecuted for their roles in the fight. Shouldn’t the student at Alpharetta High School have been prosecuted as well?

A lawyer hired by the victim’s mother said the school didn’t do enough to protect the teen who was beaten.

“Why didn’t they call 911? ” the lawyer, Esther Panitch, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday after the boy emerged from surgery to insert a  metal plate into his jaw, which was wired shut. His mother did not want to be identified out of concern for her son’s safety.

Panitch said an administrator at the South Fulton school contacted the victim’s mother sometime after 1:08 p.m. Monday — nearly 40 minutes after the school said the brawl occurred. Source

Fights are nothing new in schools, but they seem increasing in severity — students being shot, stabbed and hit with things that can cause life-threatening injuries. It seems that some of our young people are heading down a dangerous path of certain destruction if they aren’t reined in. They are destructive and angry. The Westlake High School beating and the Alpharetta High School fight are sadly part of a growing trend in teen violence in many pockets across the U.S.