Outrage over America’s worst school where students fight, smoke weed and have sex in full view of horrified neighbors
Residents living near Woodrow Wilson High School have spoken out about rowdy students who they say have no qualms about fighting each other in public and having sex in people’s driveways.
A woman named Heather, who declined to give her first name fearing retaliation from students, told the Long Beach Post that the out-of-control teenagers are more frequently disrupting the peace on the blocks surrounding the school.
The school, located in Long Beach, California, frequently shrugs off concerns from her and other neighbors, according to Heather.
She said students have smoked weed out in the open, urinated in her yard, and trespassed onto people’s properties.
Heather moved to Long Beach in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were closed down.
Ever since Wilson High School reopened, it’s been ‘chaos’, she said. Over the years, she has taken numerous videos of brawls between students.
On Tuesday, the worst fight yet spilled out onto the streets near the school, according to Heather and security footage shared with the Long Beach Post.
‘I see a huge swarm of students coming off the campus,’ she said. ‘I knew right away a fight was going to happen.’
Neighbors to Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, have said students routinely bring chaos to the surrounding streets. Fights are common and some students have even been bold enough to have sex in people’s driveways
Suzanne Caverly, the principal of Woodrow Wilson High School, is pictured
She called the police but not before the horde of youngsters climbed on cars and trampled her garden, she said.
The security footage reportedly showed dozens of students running out onto Prospect Street. Many students were seen standing by and recording the fight with their phones.
The fights cooled off but then started back up again on school grounds, which was when officials finally intervened.
About 15 minutes later, school safety officers and officers with the Long Beach Police Department arrived. But the students had already dispersed by then.
‘Upon arrival, officers were unable to locate a fight,’ the Long Beach Police Department said in a statement.
A school spokesperson told the Long Beach Post that a fight broke out in the same area after school about a month ago.
Because of that, Heather said she was surprised the school wasn’t ready nor equipped to deal with it again.
When she calls the school, Heather says she gets ‘stonewalled’.
Heather and two neighbors who declined to be identified by their names told the Long Beach Post they want more supervision of the students by school safety officers and the city police when they leave campus
‘Am I going to really call the police every time something happens?’
Heather and her neighbors have called school board members, the superintendent and City Council members, largely to no avail.
She said she got a call back from the superintendent’s office on Thursday where it was communicated that they wanted to find a solution.
Woodrow Wilson High School’s principal is Suzanne Caverly who is called a ‘relentless advocate for her students’ in a Long Beach Unified School District employee spotlight.
The school district has said that in both fights this academic year ‘school staff notified the parents of the involved students, worked to de-escalate the situation, separated the students, and restored order’.
Staff also have tried to mediate disagreements between the students who came to blows.
‘While school staff’s ability to intervene decreases when altercations occur off campus, staff proactively monitor the areas immediately adjacent to the school site,’ the district spokesperson said.
Heather and two neighbors who declined to be identified by their names told the Long Beach Post they want more supervision of the students by school safety officers and the city police when they leave campus.
One neighbor said she was seriously considering moving over the constant fights.
