CAMPUS ON EDGE AFTER RIOT.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

Security was tight at Ulysses S. Grant High School on Friday and attendance fell by a third, a day after Latino and Armenian students roiled the campus with a brawl that injured 16 and brought police in riot gear.

The feud, according to students and administrators, can be traced back to 1989 when Latino and Armenian students got into a fight over each other's fund-raising efforts.

That year, Latino students were raising money for a community member's burial, and Armenian students were raising money for victims of an earthquake in their homeland that killed more than 50,000 people.

``It all started because some people thought more emphasis was being put on one group instead of the other,'' said Dee Boyson, 29, of Canoga Park, who graduated from Grant High School in 1989.

``Someone's pride was hurt 10 years ago and instead of being an isolated event it just kept going on and on and on,'' she said.

Students now at the school draw on the 1989 incident as an excuse to perpetuate their feud every fall with grim regularity.

``Both races have a lot of pride in their families,'' said Yelena Vernaya, 16, an 11th-grader. ``It is a chain reaction: Seniors teach freshmen how to react, and as the freshmen become juniors, they teach other freshmen.''

Principal Joseph Walker agreed.

``It's handed down from generation to generation, but the kids are not racist at heart,'' said Walker, who has worked at the school for 12 years. ``They come over here as eighth- and ninth-graders and hear about the animosity that's going on and get caught up in it.

``There's a good chance we can break it because quite frankly I think the students are getting tired of it.''

It is a history of violence that continues to disrupt the campus, as on Friday when tests and other activities were canceled owing to the absence of 1,268 of the campuses' nearly 3,500 students.

Talk of Thursday's melee echoed down the hallways Friday as students walked to class under the watchful eyes of six Los Angeles bicycle cops, two school police officers, supervisors and wary staff.

``There's so many cops here I don't think anything will happen today or next week,'' 11th-grader Oziel Castro, 16, said Friday. ``Give it a few months.''

There were no reported disturbances Friday, and the varsity football game between Grant's Lancers and Vergudo Hills High School went on as scheduled.

As students return next week, class leaders hope to end the legacy, nurtured in nearby middle schools, condoned by some parents and reinforced by upperclassmen.

About 40 students, members of the student council and peer mediation classes, talked of potential solutions in a meeting with staff, community activists and state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys.

``It's so important that you resolve these things yourselves, because if the police have to come they come in hard,'' Alarcon told the students.

Alarcon suggested that leaders of the Armenian and Latino groups meet regularly to discuss problems, a suggestion eagerly embraced by peer mediator Erik Gonzalez, 17, a senior.

``If we could have one room and two security guards twice a week, five on five, we could talk it over,'' Gonzalez said.

Student leaders of both groups also vowed to go to Madison Junior High School in North Hollywood to encourage students to lay down the hatred before they graduate to Grant.

In the meeting, several students complained that suspicions between administrators and students, and in some cases overreaction by police, have thwarted past attempts to resolve this conflict.

Walker pledged that he and his staff would work closely with the student leaders to end the violence, which he said could be the legacy of this senior class.

``I'm afraid that if we don't address this situation on an ongoing basis we could have a situation like Bosnia,'' Walker said. ``The genesis and roots are the same - ethnic and cultural animosity.''

It will be difficult to change perceptions, however.

Sargis Kumuryan of North Hollywood said he was glad the administration was trying to stem the trouble. He hurried to pick up his son a half-hour after classes started at 8 a.m. when the ninth-grader complained of being glared at by other students and feared he would be beaten up.

``I don't know how long the police can stay here and watch them - not everyday,'' said Kumuryan.

Most of the time, the school's one full-time police officer and other security staff are sufficient, Walker said, and it is unlikely the increased police presence of recent days will become permanent.

A letter sent home with students Friday explained in English, Spanish and Armenian that a melee had taken place involving some 50 kids and hundreds of bystanders, that rocks, bottles and trash cans had been thrown and that two arrests had been made.

Parents are being invited to discuss the fight at a meeting on campus scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday.

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Photo

Photo: LAPD officers patrol the grounds Friday at Grant High School in Van Nuys, site of rioting between Armenian and Latino students.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer