Hueneme High Calm After Melee Between Blacks, Latinos : Education: Many parents keep children home after violence that led to three arrests. Police and security officers patrol campus.

After two days of racial strife, Hueneme High School returned to calm Thursday as more than a dozen police and security officers patrolled the campus.

But many fearful parents kept their children home despite reassurances from school officials that students were in no danger.

“I’m telling them the campus is safe and they should send their children back to school,” said Principal Joanne Black, who was besieged Wednesday night and Thursday morning with calls and visits from worried parents. “Our school is back to normal.”

The problems started, school officials said, with a fight between a black student and a Latino student last weekend at a local discount store.

Tensions overflowed into the school this week, leading to a fight between a black and a Latino student Tuesday and culminating in an after-school melee between 30 to 40 black and Latino students Wednesday.

Oxnard police arrested three people in connection with Wednesday’s violence, including a 15-year-old male student cited for fighting and a 15-year-old female student cited for assaulting another youth with a brick. Both were released to their parents.

Israel Martinez, 19, of Oxnard was also cited and released after the melee for failing to leave the scene when ordered by police.

School officials suspended about 20 students in connection with the violence.

Although this week’s troubles marked the first major racial disturbances at Hueneme High in at least 10 years, students and school officials said tensions between black and Latino youths periodically flare up at the predominantly Latino school.

Roughly 70% of the school’s 2,400 students are Latino, while about 5% are black. The rest are Anglo or members of other ethnic groups.

“Schools are a reflection of society,” Black said. “Many people remember what schools were like when they were young, but if you look at what society is like today, then you have a better understanding of the problems schools face.”

Hueneme High is not the first school in the Oxnard Union High School District that has had racial problems.

In February, 1991, about 20 Latino and black students, some armed with pipes and chains, brawled at Oxnard High, leading to the expulsion of at least 10 students. The principal was later reassigned to another school.

Oxnard High students and parents said racial tensions had been building for years.

At Hueneme High, officials excused the estimated 100 students who were absent Thursday because of fears of further trouble.

One was Gilbert Jimenez, a 17-year-old senior whose mother brought him to school Thursday morning to get him excused from classes.

As Gilbert and his mother left, the youth said he is worried about recriminations from other Latino students because he has many black friends.

“I’m afraid someone’s going to come and hit me,” Gilbert said.

Ian Coleman’s mother also escorted her son to school Thursday, but she left him there. “I’m not going to be run out of my own school,” said Ian, a 17-year-old black student.

To ease tensions, Black said, teachers openly discussed the recent fights with their classes.

Over the next few days, school counselors will bring together some of the black and Latino student leaders to talk about racial issues, Black said. And she plans to arrange a meeting for concerned parents at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the school library.