A brawl brought the Margate police to Ascend Academy Thursday and before it was over, one girl was tased, five students were charged with disorderly behavior, and a parent and a student were charged with battery on a school official.
Six students and one parent were arrested — and one teen was tased — Thursday afternoon after a brawl at a Margate school, police said.
Margate police were called to the Ascend Academy Charter High School on 5251 Coconut Creek Parkway by reports of a disturbance, said Sgt. Lori Eller, police spokeswoman.
A parent, Latasha Springer, 40, of Pompano Beach, was arrested for alleged battery on a school official, as was one of the six students who were arrested, Eller said. The disposition of her arrest was not available Thursday evening.
Police are not identifying the arrested students because of their age. The other students — five of them — were arrested for allegedly disrupting a school function.
Principal Vincent Alessi said that while the tasing was a first at his school — occurring only after the police had exhausted all the other options — the fight was not.
“Find me a school that doesn’t have fights and I want to meet that prinicipal,” he said.
He said the intensity of disagreements tends to get amplified in the age of social media, as the taunts do not end when the school bell rings.
“The 24 hour cycle of posting hurtful things at time brings anger and frustration of kids to a whole new level” Alessi said.
Six of the top 10 high schools in Florida are in South Florida, according to the 2018 U. S. News and World Report high school rankings, released Wednesday. Those six schools include five in Miami-Dade County and one in Palm Beach County.
Nationally, according to U. S. News, two of the 25 top ranked…
The school started in 2015 with 37 students, according to its website. Currently it has 220 students and has safety features at the school such as an armed security guard, school officials said. Metal detectors were put into place following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Alessi said.
Also, every student has to be submit bag search before entering the school, Aessi said.
“We’re also installing facial recognition video surveillence,” he added.
