Missing Ingredients

Last week I suspended a student I will call him Student A.  He got into a pushing and shoving fighting match with Student B.  The teacher wrote up Student A, but did not write up Student B.  I called Student A into my office and listened to his side of story.  He immediately admitted his guilt and accepted his fate, which resulted in a one day suspension. He also stated that student B hit him first.  In most cases this is a typical response, however I told him that I didn't have a D-1 with Student Bs name on it.  Still I went back to the teacher and asked her to reiterate what happened.  She told the same story.  Then I asked her did she witness Student B hitting Studetn A.  She said no and stated that her two volunteers could attest to the same thing.  For me that summed things up and I conluded the matter by calling Studetn A's parent and informed her of his suspension.  Today the school guidance counselor said she needed to talk with me about two students.  I went to her office and she began to tell me about the incident that happened last week between Student A and Student B.  I told her it had already been taken care of but she said I should listen further, so I did.  She went onto say tht she learned of Student A's suspension and was going to have to put him off the Leadership Team because that is a violation of the rules  When she asked Student A to tell her what happened, he recounted the story he had told me.  Then she called in Student B, who admitted he had hit Student A first, but said it was an accident.  Then he said they hit each other a few times and finally it ended in a shoving match.  Student B said he didn't know why he didn't get suspended becasue he was guilty of passing the first lick.  With this information, I felt horrible, but went back to my principal whom I had made aware of all the facts.  I told her that Student B "admitted" hitting Student A first and that the teacher probably had not witnessed the whole incident.  She only reported Student A because that was all she saw, which gets me to my point.  Teachers don't see everything, all the time.  We need each other to be one another's eyes and ears.  We have to work together to resolve student issues.  I can't be in all places, at all times, so I have to trust the teachers and they have to trust me to be able to come forth with information.  If I didn't have a good rapport with the guidance counselor, I may have missed this valuable information.  I went back to my principal with the new information because I was concerned that I had done something wrong.  My principal assured me that based on the infromation I had been given I did what was right.  I had also followed up with the teacher and got the same story twice.  Still I felt bad.  I asked my principal should I take some action against Student B and was told yes.  I called both boys into my office but this time I let Student B tell his side of the story.  Again he admitted hitting Student A first because he was mad.  He concluded by saying he didn't understand why Student A was the only one who got suspended.  I informed that that by his own admission, he too was being suspended for one day and had him call his parent.  I spoke with the parent and she said she understood because her son had come home and told her about what had happened.  Both boys apologized to each other and were sent back to class.  Afterward I went to the gudance counselor's office to tell her how much I appreciated what she did and I explained to her how much I respect her.  I also told her that I value her and need her to help me be the best AP and one day a principal that I can be.  It's time we as educators realize this.  "It does take a village to raise a child."  If we will work together and pool our collaborative efforts, we can get the job well done.