It seems that one high school end of the year tradition has turned foul. Freeport High School students in Long Island have made it a tradition to take part in an end of the year water fight. However last year an injury occurred when a student was hit with a bottle filled with water during the fight.
In order to keep these types of incidents from happening this year, school officials thought ahead and had the water turned off in parts of the school. To the administrators dismay this did not stop the traditional fight. However it did change the method of which it is normally carried out. The students turned to the cafeteria and hosted a food fight.
From the food fight seven students were suspended. In addition to the food fight, the fire alarms were pulled causing an evacuation of the building. Other fights began on the campus. When school was finally dismissed the fights remained. They began to take place off campus in other parts of the town. There were at least 25 students involved in a battle that later appeared on no other than YouTube.com.
A few days later more fighting took place at a shopping center where many Freeport students were involved in the action.
While school as dismissed on June 16, the superintendent of the school system does not feel that this is necessarily the end of the fighting. He recently wrote a letter to parents urging them to help take action to make the school and community a safer place by getting involved in community forums that are planned to take place in the next few weeks. The forums will take a focus on community safety and will focus on the safety issues at school and the year end activities.
The hope is that through the forums, the community can work together to help give the students alternative activities for kicking off the summer break.
Call for School Violence Meeting