27 are arrested in the latest incident between Katrina evacuees and local students

Mónica Guzmán:

A brawl that began in the Westbury High School cafeteria Wednesday and spilled outdoors capped weeks of growing tension between Houston students and Hurricane Katrina evacuees and resulted in the arrest of 27 students.

The fight was one of about a dozen such on-campus clashes that have roiled Houston and surrounding areas since thousands of students from New Orleans began attending local schools in September.

In response, Westbury students can expect more police at the school beginning today, a school district spokesman said.

Houston Independent School District Board President Dianne Johnson said the efforts would not end there and sought to assure parents that student safety is "our No. 1 priority."

"I feel certain that the administration is going to look into this," she said. "We're certainly going to take whatever steps it takes to make sure that students are safe when they attend school."

The fight Wednesday was sparked, students said, when a girl made a gang sign in or near the cafeteria and a boy loudly cursed New Orleans. It quickly spread to other areas of campus and then outdoors.

HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said he could not confirm how the fight started, saying the details are under investigation. He said he understood it had begun in the cafeteria as a fight between girls.

One student suffered a minor cut to the eye, Abbott said. No other injuries were reported.

Westbury, in southwest Houston, has nearly 2,500 students, including 300 from Louisiana. Fifteen of those arrested after Wednesday's brawl were Katrina evacuees, said HISD spokeswoman Adriana Villareal. Eighteen were juveniles.

The juveniles were released to their parents. The remaining students were taken to a jail in southeast Houston, she said.

All were charged with engaging in a riot, and an adult female from Houston faces a charge of assaulting a police officer, officials said. The charges are misdemeanors, and no weapons were involved, Abbott said.

The mother of a 14-year-old freshman at Westbury said things have changed at the school.

"After Katrina, I hate to say it, but it's been chaos," she said. "It's really sad. It's truly sad."

Some Houston students said the once-open social atmosphere at the school has become charged with new tensions since New Orleans students joined their classes.

Caught On Tape: Massive School Fight