Brawls between students are disrupting some Michigan schools this fall and even prompting shelter-in-place protocols in some cases that usually are reserved for threats of gun violence ― a situation that one official said reflects a statewide increase in “more challenging behaviors” in schools. Justin Heinze, an associate professor in University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, noted a small but meaningful decline in fights over the last decade in Michigan, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Of the high school students surveyed, 5.4% said they had been in a fight on school property in 2023, the last year statistics are available, down from 6.9% in 2013.
