DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160538

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   61 lines

OTHERS SAY WHAT WASN'T A PROBLEM NOW MAY BECOME A PROBLEM. SOME SAY RACIAL TENSIONS PART OF PROBLEM

Officials say restlessness and unruly students sparked Tuesday's melee at Woodrow Wilson High School. But ask students and they'd add two other problems to the list: neighborhood and racial tensions.

``There are too many neighborhoods in that one school,'' said Julie Lombardi, 17, a senior who witnessed the outbreak that sent three pregnant students to the hospital and 22 others to the school nurse. ``It's like three schools in one - Manor, Wilson and Cradock - and it's crowded.''

Cradock High School closed in June 1992. In 1993, the original Wilson High closed and merged with Manor High School, which was renamed Woodrow Wilson High. Putting all of those students into one building was bound to cause trouble, students said.

``They tried to mix people up too much,'' said Jessica Stypulkoski, 17, a senior. ``It just doesn't work.''

Five of eight students interviewed said that a thread of racial tension runs through the student body. Of the 1,579 students at Wilson, about 60 percent are black, 39 percent are white and about 2 percent are Asian or Hispanic.

``I've been going there for three years and I believe there has always been racial tension there,'' Stypulkoski said.

The tension manifests itself in racially-charged language and in students aggressively jostling each other in the crowded hallways, the students said.

Following Tuesday's senior class meeting about graduation caps and gowns and a vote on senior superlatives, students said that the thread of tension broke. After business was finished, seniors were confined to the auditorium because sophomores and juniors were taking standardized tests.

Lombardi, who was in the auditorium, said a group of white boys started throwing balled up paper at a group of black girls and eventually a fight, the first of many, erupted.

All of the students said the fights were racially divided. Several added that after the initial fight, a group of black students roamed outside the school looking for white students to beat.

``When it was over, I had friends of different colors coming up to me crying and asking me, `Why?' '' said Aaron Allen, 19, a junior, who doesn't believe that racial tensions caused the fights.

The other students who said that race relations were fine before Tuesday believe that that may change in the wake of the fights. Some predicted that white students will try to retaliate later this week.

Courtney Rhodes, 17, a senior, said that ``race relations were pretty good - until yesterday. It was more ignorance and boredom (that led to the fights). I think it has escalated into racism.''

None of the students were optimistic about what faces them at school today. They fear the violence will continue.

``What didn't happen today will carry on into (Thursday),'' Allen said.

Most planned to go to school and mind their own business. The added security will be a comfort, they said. Rhodes didn't plan to return to school this week because of safety concerns. But she also is frustrated with the need for more security.

``I don't want to go to prison, and that's what this school is turning out to be,'' she said. ``It's not the kind of atmosphere I want to be learning in. But I guess we've done it to ourselves.'' KEYWORDS: RIOT

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