Their button-downs buttoned, and resumes still warm from the printer, teenagers headed to the D.C. College Fair Tuesday to meet with representatives from more than 300 colleges and universities.
And then things went wrong.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. — more than an hour and a half before the morning session was supposed to finish — 12,000 students were evacuated after fights broke out, WAMU reports.
The Office of the State Superintendent, which co-sponsored the fair, declined to comment. A spokesman for Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley called the scene “a non-issue.”
But the evening session of the college fair was canceled, and students were pretty bummed. An 11th-grade charter school student from Southeast told WAMU she had prepared herself with questions to ask, and now didn’t know where to get them answered.
Terry Lynch, vice president of School Without Walls Senior High School’s parent organization, wrote a letter to D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown asking local officials to hold hearings on school safety.
“Very unfortunate D.C. students and families lost out on the opportunity to learn more about colleges,” said Lynch, whose daughter is a sophomore at Walls.
He said he also was upset that D.C. Public Schools failed to provide any information about what happened at the college fair.
