Correction: This article has been updated to remove a photograph that should not have accompanied it. The photo purported to show school saftey officers breaking up a fight at a girls basketball game at Laney. No fight occured. Read Managing Editor Elizabeth Adams' blog for more information.

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Zach Boyden-Holmes/Staff

School Safety and Security Officer Shelton Ward walks the halls at Hornsby Elementary.

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Officials with Richmond County's Department of School Safety say they're putting a greater emphasis this year on filing criminal charges when it comes to disruptive school fights.

"When you got the six, seven people (fighting) and you've got to call officers from different schools and it disrupts the school, we're adding criminal charges along with the administrative," said school safety Lt. Richard Roundtree.

Roundtree said that so far this school year 170 people have been remanded to tribunals for fights in Richmond County schools. He said that's the same number as this time a year ago. During last school year, 335 students were sent to tribunals after fights.

"We're right on pace," he said, but added that punishments are becoming more severe because students are "not getting the message."

Last week, for example, a judge sentenced nine Josey High School students to 60 days in jail for fighting.

Eleven students were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in the Jan. 6 fight. Two of those students had lawyers, and their cases were continued.

In the past, such charges would have resulted in fines and probation, Roundtree said.

Last week, another fight at Josey involved six female students and a parent. All seven were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

On Jan. 20 at Collins Elementary, a pregnant teacher was injured while breaking up a fight between two special needs students.

The school safety office is now investigating to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

Roundtree said his department faces a challenge of having just 35 officers to oversee a student population of 32,000 and a work force of 5,000.

"Every time we lose one or two (officers from a sick day), that stretches us thin," Roundtree said.

Next year the safety office will have one more middle school to cover.

"When they go to K-8, we'll probably add an officer," Roundtree said of Collins Elementary School, which currently teaches kindergarten through seventh grade and has no officer assigned.

Roundtree said his department has no officers based at elementary schools, but there is at least one at every middle and high school because they typically have more incidents. Some high schools have two officers.

At the elementary level, it's up to the principal to decide to call in an officer, but Roundtree has said his department prefers to get a call any time a student or teacher is injured.

That didn't happen in the case of the pregnant teacher injured at Collins.

The school system's central office was notified, but school safety learned of the incident five days later from a Chronicle reporter and decided to start an investigation.

As of Tuesday, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office didn't have a report on file on the case, but Roundtree hasn't asked the sheriff's office to be involved.

Roundtree said that if funding were available he would like to have two officers at every high school.

"Five (additional) officers would take much of the burden," he said.

First, though, his department will focus on getting an officer stationed at Collins Elementary next school year, he said.

To do so, a high school with two officers might have to give up one.

Already this year Collins has added seventh-grade classes. School spokesman Louis Svehla said the additional grades at Collins are the result of a rightsizing plan as part of the closing of Tubman Middle. "Currently, there are no other schools scheduled to receive additional grades," he said. Besides Collins, Richmond County has three other schools that start with kindergarten and go beyond fifth grade: Freedom Park, W.S. Hornsby and C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet, all of which are K-8.

Roundtree said Hornsby is the only K-8 with an officer.