Posted on 09/12/2002 8:28:18 AM PDT by gulfwarvet
School officials fielded anxious phone calls from parents Wednesday, one day after a fight between a Somali student and another teenager broke out at Lewiston High School and turned into an afternoon melee off school grounds.
“What we’re trying to do now is assure parents that we have a very safe school,” said Principal Patrick O’Neill.
Record-setting heat and community friction have caused tensions to rise recently in the 1,250-student high school, officials acknowledged. But, said Superintendent Leon Levesque, “The school has been very calm.”
On Wednesday, disruptions to the school came not from fights but from rampant rumors about weapons and further fights following Tuesday’s brawl near Marcotte Park, in which police arrested two men, neither of whom was a Lewiston High School student.
“It’s completely consumed our day,” said Levesque.
Lewiston police patrolled the area around the high school after school let out Wednesday afternoon. There were no fights.
“Everything was very peaceful and smooth,” said the school system’s Somali community liaison, Mohammed Abdi. He expected similar patrols to continue through the week.
As scheduled, Lewiston High School students will spend this week talking about Sept. 11, its aftermath and effect on Americans’ attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants. No special assemblies or events were planned to address Tuesday’s incident.
According to O’Neill, the confrontation started when a teenager who did not attend Lewiston High School followed a Somali student into the school’s lobby and taunted him. O’Neill said he interceded as the argument became physical and the Somali boy tried to restrain the other teen.
As is school policy, O’Neill suspended the Somali student for three days for his part in the fight. He told the other teenager to leave school property or he would be arrested.
According to police, the high school fight generated a large brawl at 2 p.m. near Marcotte Park. That one involved more than four dozen people.
Levesque said the high school has worked hard to combat rumors and to ease racial tensions there since Somali immigrants began moving into the city a year-and-a-half ago. But friction within the community has begun to cause renewed tension within the school.
While Levesque couldn’t predict whether such friction would lead to more battles at or around Lewiston High School, he hoped to see community leaders identify the issues causing the most contention and come up with resolutions soon.
“I think probably we need to look at this from a community perspective,” he said.
Religion of pieces doncha know.
I nominate this for the post of the day!!
On GP, you're right, but the word on the street here in Atlanta is that those that go immediately go on welfare.
There's a huge community in DeKalb, mostly around Memorial Drive and headed southward from there. And not just Somalis, there are a fair number from several different African nations in that part of Decatur and south DeKalb. Then of course, you have your requisite few over in "Chambodia" up on Buford Hwy...
Lewiston will be full of trash, unemployment, condemned buildings, and crime just as every other city that has endured this type of demographic transformation.
I also pointed out that the multiculturalist dogma is being promoted at the same time that huge numbers of third world immigrants and illegal aliens are being brought into America.
BTW, I would support a movement which had as its goal the total dismantling and destruction (not the physical buildings) of the public school system, never to return again. I don't want to even rebuild it.
Public schools and 'free' education are basically flawed.
That's certainly not the case in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. There was a story a few monts ago that was widely reported as "Asian kids victims of bias" which is a typical PC distortion of the real story.
SURVEY: RACISM RAMPANT AT B'KLYN'S LAFAYETTE HS By CARL CAMPANILE NY POST
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April 17, 2002 -- EXCLUSIVE
Students and staff at Lafayette say the Brooklyn high school is a dangerous hotbed of racial bias.
An explosive survey obtained by The Post shows one student out of 10 reports suffering physical or verbal attacks by classmates who targeted them because of their race. And 36 percent believe racial tensions are high at the Bensonhurst school.
Teachers and other staff members agree.
Some 48.6 percent of them said that racial bias is a problem.
Schools Chancellor Harold Levy called for a probe at Lafayette in August after The Post exposed a series of allegedly racially motivated attacks - including the severe beating of a Pakistani student last year. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating alleged civil-rights violations at the school.
Lafayette subsequently created a special bias task force, whose members include Ronald Woo, the head of Levy's office of monitoring and school improvement, its new principal, Alan Siegel, as well as teachers, parents and community leaders.
The poll queried 1,545 students and 34 teachers and staffers.
Only 24.6 percent of the students thought bias was not a problem. About 40 percent were unsure.
"More students of every racial-ethnic group agreed with the statement [that bias exists at the school] than disagreed," an analysis of the results said.
There was a huge racial and ethnic disparity in the students who reported being a bias victim.
Half of the students who claimed to be bias victims identified themselves as white, 26.3 percent as Asian, 6.7 percent as black and 6.4 percent as Hispanic.
The percentage of white alleged victims was more than triple the 15.7 percent white representation among Lafayette's 2,400 students.
The percentage of Asian victims was more than double the 12.7 percent of Asians enrolled at the school.
Only 25 percent of the students who said they were bias victims notified authorities, the survey found.
"Students that did give a reason for not reporting indicated a fear of retribution by students, staff or school," the analysis said.
Levy spokeswoman Catie Marshall said the bias survey, conducted in the fall, is the first of its kind in a city high school. The survey was done in Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Spanish as well as English.
"This is a blueprint for healing a school community," Marshall said. "This survey is part of the solution to root out problems at Lafayette."
She said there have been no alleged bias incidents this year.
Same policy when I was in school back in the olden days, everybody gets kicked out. Solution was to get his butt kicked and GTFOOD before the assistant principal shows up.
Sometimes, I saw white students beaten up on by black students, unprovoked, and the white students happened to say a quick racial slur. Because of the slur, the white student received the same punishment as the black student, even though the black student started the bullying, and even though the white student didn't fight back or say anything until after the abuse.
Crazy, I tell you.
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