Wilson Students Protest Lunch Restrictions

I was reminded by a faculty member today that billionaire Warren Buffet graduated from Woodrow Wilson High. Class of 1943.

DC Mayor Adrian Fenty also attended the school in upper Northwest, long considered among the City's best.

Today Wilson's sixteen hundred students are restricted to the building, prohibited from leaving for lunch, under new emergency restrictions enacted by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, following a series of attacks on students.

13 Wilson students have been arrested. Some have been injured in attacks around the Northwest campus.

When I arrived at the school today with cameraman Keith Williams dozens of students were defying the order and gathering outside the school on the football field.

Elsewhere some Seniors, leaving after half day, said they are considering a school wide walkout to protest Rhee's "lock down".
They called on the Chancellor to include student leaders in future discussions and to enforce the rules of conduct already on the books.

Rhee has stopped any more enrollment at Wilson for the remainder of the year. A zero tolerance policy has been implemented.

Some of the instigators are believed to be from Oak Hill-the District's Youth Reformatory. Rhee says she'll meet with Oak Hill staff. Three additional Security Guards have been added at Wilson today. That's a total of ten.

Mafara Hobson, A spokesperson for the Chancellor told me the lunch time restrictions will be replaced by permanent new security guidelines later in the week.

The problem says Hobson is there are 16 hundred students and a cafeteria that holds only 400 students and when everyone goes to lunch at the same time "You can't now supervise everyone" she says.

Click here to watch Bruce's TV Report on the Student Protest at Wilson High .