Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Students Leave School To Join Teachers to Protest

Several Fights have been reported at Livingston High School

This story originally appeared on Columbus Dispatch website 

Reynoldsburg police locked down the district's Livingston High School campus this morning after fights broke out among students inside. Outside, teachers are on the picket lines in a labor dispute with the district.

A police dispatcher said officers received reports of fights at the school at about 11:34 a.m. and that at least two students had been arrested. District spokeswoman Tricia Moore said the fight was between two girls and that one of them was arrested.

The district was placed on a "modified" lockdown she said, in which students remained in their classrooms and teachers switched classes.

<<Video: Fights reported inside school

A student who left the high school said officers used pepper spray to stop the fights, but police issued a statement this afternoon saying no "chemical agents" were used in the incident.

Noah Brumfield, a 10th-grader in the Bell Academy at the campus, said he left the school and found his homeroom teacher on the picket line to tell her what was happening inside. She suggested that he call his parents and his father came to pick him up.

"I just wanted to get out of there," Brumfield said.

Livingston students had planned a walkout at noon. Instead, like Brumfield, many called their parents to come and pick them up after the fight broke out. 

“Everyone is freaking out,” said Michaela Cooper, 14, a ninth-grader at Bell Acedemy whose mother picked her up from school around noon. “It’s kind of scary. I want my teachers back.” 

She wasn't the only one. 

“I’m not going back there until the teachers come back because I don’t feel safe,” said Jaime Montague, 17, a 12th-grader at Bell Academy..

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