Eight Annapolis High School students have been suspended for their roles Wednesday in three unrelated fights, one of which police say "stopped short of an actual riot."
The largest of the fights, involving five students, began at 9:30 a.m. as classes changed.
The police report did not give details of how the fight started, but quoted Assistant Principal Dennis McKay as saying it "caused a major disruption of the normal school routine."
Additional students became involved and almost turned the fight into a riot, the report said.
Joyce Smith, the principal, disagreed with that assessment and said the entire incident was over in about one minute.
"There were probably more teachers in the hallway than students," Mrs. Smith said yesterday.
Two 17-year-old boys were charged as juveniles with willful disturbance of school activities, police said. Both were released to relatives on the authority of their mothers, police said.
Mr. McKay told police he would file adult charges for the same offense with the court commissioner's office against three students, an 18-year-old and two 19-year-olds.
Mrs. Smith said yesterday, how ever, that school officials reconsidered and decided not to pursue adult charges against the three students.
All three fights were essentially the result of "he said, she said" kinds of arguments, Mrs. Smith said.
"I don't know whether it's the change in weather or the cycles of the moon, but yesterday everybody's nerves were on edge for some reason," Mrs. Smith said.
To have three fights in a single day at Annapolis High "was not unusual in the past, but it isn't something we've seen this year," she said.
Mrs. Smith said the fact that there are fewer fights is the direct result of a series of conflict resolution workshops at Sandy Point State Park this fall. The workshops, for several hundred students, were developed and conducted by student leaders who were concerned about the rising number of violent incidents in all schools.
"I'd say it was extremely successful," Mrs. Smith said. "Most of the time when two people start to fight, somebody else comes up and walks one of them away. You just can't believe this is happening, but it does. The students are now working on a grant proposal so everybody in school can participate."