"It must be fight season," said Dave Crews, Cortez High School’s assistant principal, in regard to the rash of spring fights at Montezuma-Cortez High School.

"Up until the end of February, I hadn’t suspended any students for fighting," Crews said. "Between the end of February and now, though, I have suspended eight students — four of them for fighting."

Most of the fights at the high school occur during the spring semester, says the assistant principal. "It’s that time after Christmas and before spring break, when the weather starts getting nice, that the students start getting frisky," he said.

Included in this recent flurry of violent activity was the recent case of a 16-year-old high school student who, under the influence of alcohol, got up from his seat in class and starting hitting one of his fellow classmates, leaving the 15-year-old boy in need of eight stitches.

Re-1 officials said that the fight was broken up by the classroom teacher with assistance from a student who helped to apply restraint. The teacher, however, did not feel comfortable discussing the situation with the public.

According to the school’s disciplinary-actions guideline, a student who is caught for the first time fighting, provoking a fight, intimidating another student, or for assault or battery, faces an automatic three- to five-day suspension and police and parent contact. In cases of extreme violence, a recommendation for the student’s expulsion may be made.

Crews said that in cases such as the recent classroom fight, where the student is in the special education program, the suspension/expulsion process has to be slowed down.

Bill Thompson, the superintendent of schools for Re-1, said that because the assailant is a special-ed student, he has been put on extended suspension until a manifestation hearing can be arranged.

"The manifestation hearing is a meeting between the school psychologist, the special education teachers and the administration to determine whether or not a particular discipline problem is the result of the student’s disability," Thompson said.

Crews said that the 16-year-old assailant’s manifestation hearing will be held this Thursday.

"There has been discussion of putting cameras into classrooms, and we have people walking around in the halls with radios, but with 890 different personalities inside the building, sometimes fights are unavoidable," Crews said.

Classroom fights often take teachers by surprise, Crews said, and Cortez teachers are trained only for restraint.

"We tell them to use basic common sense," Crews said. "Don’t intervene alone, call for help and get the other students away from the dangerous situation."