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Adults' missteps detailed in S. Phila. High violence

On Dec. 3, as Asian students endured a daylong series of attacks at South Philadelphia High, the adults responsible for their safety were often confused or unsure how to respond.

On Dec. 3, as Asian students endured a daylong series of attacks at South Philadelphia High, the adults responsible for their safety were often confused or unsure how to respond.

The principal ordered a midmorning lockdown - designed to restrict student movement and move staffers to security posts - but some teachers weren't notified.

Asian students, who last year were allowed to go home early when trouble broke out, were first told they could leave, then instructed to return to class.

In the nurse's office, which housed injured Chinese students, including one with a broken nose, debate arose over who should call 911. Finally, the call was placed, not by school personnel but by a victim-witness counselor who had gone to the school.

Time after time Dec. 3, adults made decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information, as documented in the school district's Feb. 23 report on the violence and in interviews for this article with teachers and students.

District officials said neither Superintendent Arlene Ackerman nor principal LaGreta Brown would be interviewed.

Michael Silverman, the regional superintendent who oversees South Philadelphia and other high schools, declined to discuss specific events that occurred Dec. 3. He said, however, that the violence had brought official scrutiny to how the school operated in a crisis.

"What we've done is really gone in and looked at all of their policies and procedures," Silverman said. "I think the school has really had an opportunity to reflect and to know how to improve going forward."

Ackerman, who ordered the inquiry that produced the report by retired federal Judge James T. Giles, has characterized it as "fair" and urged the public to move on from Dec. 3.

The report cites race as a factor in all the day's attacks on Asian students, carried out by large groups of mostly African American students. It blames the violence on rumors that followed an after-school confrontation the previous day, including one that Asian youths had beaten a disabled African American student.

One student described the terror that engulfed Asians that day. "We are so scared. We are speechless," said Bach Tong, a 16-year-old 10th grader.

That day, no one in the school leadership issued the equivalent of a "code red," alerting staffers to the crisis, several teachers said.

"We found out by rumors, and teachers telling other teachers," said one teacher, who asked not be identified because she feared retribution from school officials.

Ken Trump, a school-security expert, said that even in volatile situations when administrators didn't have full information, they "should put out some type of alert saying, 'We're not exactly sure what's going on, but just have some awareness.' "

Many schools make such announcements over the PA system, telling teachers, administrators, and support staff to check for a new e-mail message detailing what is known and how to proceed, said Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services in Cleveland.

The teacher said she had learned of the attacks when she had seen an Asian student with a bloody mouth. Then another student asked to go to a doctor, and some asked to go home. No one called 911, the teacher said.

"We kept asking, 'When can they go home?' " she said, citing past practice. "I'm not really clear on the protocol, and I don't know that anybody else is, either."

Ellen Somekawa, director of Asian Americans United, a Philadelphia organization, said the kindest characterization of the school leadership that day would be that "different adults had different perspectives on what the best course of action would be."

Brown's decision to move frightened students out of school and into the crowds, she said, constituted "an incredible lapse of judgment."

At dismissal, a group of Vietnamese kids hung by an exit door, afraid to leave.

A school police officer was about to tell them to go back inside and take refuge in the school when Brown appeared with staff members in tow, according to the school report.

The principal told the Vietnamese students to hurry up and follow her - they were leaving.

The officer didn't interrupt to tell Brown that the kids had said they were afraid to go. And she didn't ask.

Nor did Brown know that a contingent of Philadelphia police, stationed outside to ensure a safe dismissal, had been redeployed to handle a shooting elsewhere.

The principal led the 10 or 11 Vietnamese students, mostly girls, onto Broad Street - and into a horrific beating at the center of 100 youths.

The attackers, according to the report, included some white youths and a Cambodian girl.

The first assault of the day occurred at 8:15 a.m., when a group of predominantly African American students attacked an Asian youth in Classroom 424.

At 11 a.m., Brown ordered the lockdown. At that point, there was calm, the report said.

But at lunchtime, "a surge" of 30 to 40 African American students pushed onto the second floor, where Asian students gather for English-learner classes. The surge dispersed in the face of school police and staff.

Chaos broke out in the lunchroom hallway when 60 to 70 students surged toward a small group of Asians, and then in the lunchroom itself. Asians were punched and kicked in the head, hands, arms, and back, the report said.

Some Chinese students said the principal had assured them that it was safe to go to lunch. Brown did not recall saying that, the report said. As the students moved from the second floor into the lunchroom area, they were set upon and beaten.

Afterward, the report said, some frightened Asian students requested early dismissal. The previous year, after a similar "second-floor invasion," a different principal let students leave once parents gave oral consent.

This time, the report said, Brown apparently approved a plan for Asian students to leave, then changed her mind. Even as parents were being phoned for consent, the decision was made that students younger than 18 could not leave without parental escort.

"It is not clear, however, that this change was communicated, or communicated clearly, to students and teachers," the report said. "Some of the Asian students who tried to leave school with early-dismissal notes were sent back to class by school police officers."

The principal, the report said, decided on a plan for "silent dismissal." That is, no general bell would sound. Instead, students would be dismissed floor by floor.

In interviews, some teachers said they had never been told of that plan.

At 2:50 p.m., 14 minutes before the final bell was to ring, one teacher said, there was a knock at her door: A school police officer told her to dismiss class immediately.

"I said, 'I'm in the middle of a lesson,' but he said, 'Your kids have got to leave now.' "

When the bell didn't ring at 3:04, most teachers kept their students in class - apparently unaware of the silent-dismissal plan, according to teachers. Others let their classes depart.

Injured Chinese students in the nurse's office said they had been told they must leave - and face the crowds outside. Two families of injured students showed up. One of them, the father of the youth with the broken nose, insisted that 911 be called.

But, the report said, there was "confusion over who would call 911 and who would pay for the cost of the students' medical treatment at the hospital."

A representative from Victim-Witness Services of South Philadelphia arrived and called 911 for an ambulance, the report said.

The school leadership had predicated the dismissal plan on a promise of a heavy city police presence outside. That beefed-up force was in place 30 minutes before dismissal. But by the time students left, some officers had been called to a shooting in front of Audenried High School.

School personnel were not told of the reduced police presence, according to the report. A Police Department spokeswoman, contacted for this article, said she could not immediately reply to questions on the matter.

That day, as the Vietnamese students left school with the principal, they told her and the other adults that they were afraid to walk home without a police escort.

Brown asked a city police sergeant stationed at Broad and Snyder Avenue to escort the students. He told her that walking kids home from school was not a police function, the report said.

When interviewed for the report, the sergeant said he had not known the school had been a battleground that day. If he had, he might have acted differently, the report said.

Brown said she would have made a different assessment, the report said, if she'd known police had been called away.