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.

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.

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.



She said students were grouped together by grade level and class content for classes. For example, seniors in calculus, AP calculus, trigonometry and other math classes wereput together with one teacher. That meant substitute teachers had 30 or 40 kids in their classes, Montague said.



In her physics class, she said, they were given worksheets on content they had not covered with their regular teacher.



Some students said the substitute had them play classroom games instead of teaching them.

It was an emotional morning for many Reynoldsburg students who started the day watching their teachers on the picket line.

"It's really depressing," said senior Jon Caruso, 18, who attends Reynoldsburg eSTEM Academy. "Our teachers are important. They aren't just your teachers. I'm friends with most of mine."

About 70 teachers, all wearing red Reynoldsburg Education Association shirts, paced in front ofReynoldsburg High School�s Summit Road campus. They carried signs that read, "On strike," "Settle now," and "Fighting for the schools our children deserve."

Teachers on the picket lines broke into chants that targeted Superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning, the substitute teachers andworking conditions.

One high-school teacher shouted out her class sizes - 33, 37 and 34.

Another described a lack of resources: seven textbooks for 31 kids.

As buses dropped off high-school students around 7 a.m., teachers paused and waved at their students.

Several teens ran to their teachers with a hug and to offer their support.

"I love our teachers," said Audrey Lovvorn, 18, a senior at Encore Academy. "I want them with us, not the (substitute) teachers we have now."

Reynoldsburg police officers were monitoring thesituation and traffic around the building.

The union said on its Facebook page that a white van bringing in substitutes struck a picketing teacher near Waggoner Road Middle School. A Reynoldsburg police dispatcher said an officer went there to take a report and that there were no injuries. The dispatcher said she had no other details.

Security officers from Huffmaster, the strike-management company that the district hired, stood by the school driveway as well.

Parent Kevin Hairston drove his daughter to school this morning and walked her into the building.

"I wanted to make sure everything was normal for her."

The teachers shouted �Scabs go home!� to the substitutes entering the school.

At the high school�s Livingston Avenue campus, about 20 teachers were conducting a less confrontational picket. Some students were spending time outside with the teachers on the picket line, and a supporter brought doughnuts for the striking teachers.

Representatives from the teachers union and the school board met for about four hours yesterday, but left about 5 p.m. without reaching an agreement. During that meeting, the board offered binding arbitration if the teachers would not strike.

�Our most-recent proposal to the board represents the best interests of our students, teachers and taxpayers by addressing all of the outstanding issues,� Reynoldsburg Education Association spokeswoman Kathy Evans said.

Later, the union�s bargaining team met with its membership at the union office of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1466 in Reynoldsburg.

Teachers poured out of that meeting about 10 p.m. Thursday, carrying strike signs.

Their announcement of a strike was met with cheers of support and tears from dozens of parents and students who waited outside the office.

�I am deeply saddened,� said Reynoldsburg City Councilwoman Leslie Kelly, whose two children attend school in the district. She also is a former administrator with Reynoldsburg schools.

�It�s heartbreaking to see all these teachers walk out here with a look of anguish and sadness,� Kelly said. �It�s scary to think about what today is going to look like.�

Evans said that the board�s offer of binding arbitration �shirks their responsibility to negotiate a fair, reasonable contract for Reynoldsburg teachers, students and community, by requesting an outsider to make decisions for Reynoldsburg.�

Board of Education President Andy Swope, who is on the board�s negotiating team, said binding arbitration would mean that both sides would pick an arbitrator and agree to abide by the contract that the arbitrator presents.

But he said late last night that the offer is off the table with teachers picketing.

�We did what we could to keep teachers from striking,� he said.

Both sides have prepared for a work stoppage. Teachers already have removed their belongings from classrooms and turned in their district equipment and badges.

Meanwhile, the district has hired substitute teachers, additional security personnel and temporary administrators to monitor the buildings.

About 360 union members � including teachers, guidance counselors, nurses and other certified staff members � are on strike. Bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other support staff are in another union.

Teachers initially balked at a contract proposal in May that would have made their raises entirely dependent on their performance ratings and would have replaced the district�s health-care plan with a cash payment for teachers to buy their own insurance.

The most-recent contract offered by the district included step and cost-of-living raises, along with additional pay based on performance. That offer also maintained the health-care plan.

Teachers rejected that plan, with 97 percent of those voting turning it down. The union has said that it wants a new contract to include caps on class sizes and said its latest proposal would have cost the district less than what was offered by the board.

After nearly five months of negotiations, a groundswell of parents, students and community members have come out in support of teachers.

Several said they plan to keep their children home today out of concern about sending students to school during a crisis. They also said they want to show support for teachers.

�I stand behind them 100 percent,� said parent Cory Gueth, who plans to keep her two children home today.

cboss@dispatch.com

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