Eighteen disciplined for Jackson food fight

Published 6:16 pm Tuesday, May 19, 2009

A food fight orchestrated by some Jackson High School students last week resulted in more than a dozen expulsions and briefly suspended the prom.

The food fight occurred about 10:50 a.m. May 14 during the first lunch period with numerous staff members standing by.

School administrators got wind that students were planning to disrupt lunch. Four students were called in and told not to do it, Everett school district spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said.

As of Friday, administrators put as many as 18 students on emergency expulsion, which means they were immediately removed from school under the condition that they meet with administrators to discuss their behavior. Parents are also involved in the process and punishment can include suspensions or community service.

The prom was suspended Thursday, but by Friday, the administration reinstated it.

Sophomore Tony Carnevale, who took photos of the melee with his iPhone, was sitting in a corner of the cafeteria when it started.

“I saw it all. I saw it all start. I heard the rumors,” he said.

A group of juniors started it, Carnevale said, and about 100 students participated in the fight.

“I thought they handled it pretty quick,” Carnevale said of the teachers and administrators who surrounded the cafeteria anticipating something might happen. “In the end it was just a food fight. They were trying to do their best to keep us safe.”

The mayhem was caught on video and television crews were on the scene soon after.

Students sent text and phone messages to television and radio stations immediately after the food fight. Some of the messages said that someone had died and ambulances had to respond, which was untrue, Waggoner said.

“They tried to use technology to reel the media in to respond to false information,” she said.

Within hours, KING-TV posted a story on its Web site as one of its top stories with video, as did KIRO-TV. The KING video played after the Web site visitor viewed various commercials including one for Applebee’s Restaurants. The KIRO video of the cleanup played after commercials as well. Also within hours, nearly 200 comments were posted on KING’s Web site, many of them claiming to be from students and parents. Other newspapers and television stations in the Seattle area also had coverage.

The fight remains under investigation by administrators who are interviewing students and talking to parents, Waggoner said.

“I am disappointed,” Jackson principal Terry Cheshire said. “The choices of a few individuals take away from the neat things our students are doing. It gets overshadowed by poor choices.”

Many families are struggling in bad economic times trying to put food on the table and the waste displayed was also distasteful, he said.

In response, the students, at Cheshire’s suggestion, are starting a food drive.

“It’s taking a negative situation and turning it into as positive a situation as we could,” Cheshire said.