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All after-school activities at Northwestern Middle School canceled after fight

At least one person was taken into custody, a source says.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — All after-school activities at Northwestern Middle School in Moncrief were canceled due to a disruption on campus between several students. 

Sometime during the afternoon, several students were involved in a fight on campus. School security responded to the incident and contained the students involved.

The decision to cancel all after-school activities was made after DCPS police alerted staff to the disruption on the campus, located at 2100 W 45th St.

In order to cut back on any unnecessary hallway activity and ensure a calm transition between classes, Northwestern Middle School was put on code yellow for the remainder of the day

DCPS says parents were notified of the incident via a phone call from the principal. 

At least one person was taken into custody, a source says.

No other schools have been impacted by this incident. 

Below are scripts of the phone calls that went out to parents. 

First Call/Email

Good Afternoon parents and guardians of Northwestern Middle School,

The safety of our students is important to us. Therefore, we want to let you know that due to reports of major disruptions on our campus after school, we are canceling all after school activities including Team Up and athletics. Again, all afterschool activities including Team up and athletics are canceled today.

If your student is involved in an afterschool activity, we are asking that you please pick them up or make appropriate transportation arrangements. Again, please pick up your child or arrange for transportation if your child are involved in an afterschool activity.

Please note that all students and staff are safe and will be dismissed as normal. We will send out a follow-up
phone call this afternoon with additional information. Thank you for your understanding at this time.

Second Call/Email

Good Afternoon parents and guardians,

This is Principal DeWese calling. Earlier, you received a phone call announcing that all afterschool activities were canceled. 

I’d like to provide information into the incidents today that led to that decision and the security measures we took to ensure our students and staff were safe. 

This afternoon, several students became involved in a physical altercation. School security and staff responded and were able to separate and contain the students. 

To control hallway activity and ensure a calm transition between classes we put the school on a Code Yellow for the remainder of the day.

We are thankful that students and staff were safe during this time. However, we are very disappointed by this incident. Physical altercations and major disruptions are totally unacceptable, and appropriate discipline and possible law enforcement action will take place.

As we work to ensure a safe environment for our students, we ask for your help. Please talk with your children and reinforce positive conflict resolution skills. While they may disagree with someone else, they may never resort to violence to resolve those disagreements. Remind them of the harm that can come to themselves, to others, and to their entire campus when physical altercations take place. As Northwestern Middle students, they serve as representatives of their community. Days like today do not show off the intelligent, capable and wonderful role models that we know that they are.

 We appreciate your partnership in keeping our campus a safe and positive learning environment. Thank you for your time and patience, and I hope you have a great remainder of your evening. 

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